Bobby Allen threw his boys in the deep end with every conviction they were capable of producing a moment like this.
A million-dollar moment.
His boys, of course, typically refer to grandson Logan Schuchart and youngest son Jacob Allen who are the de facto crew chiefs for their respective cars. It also refers to veteran racing everyman, Bill Klingbeil, who is literally family, or mechanics Brendan Collum, CJ Duarte and Lonnie Judy, who make up their combined but modest crew.
They’re collectively the boys and the boys just won a million dollars on Thursday night at Eldora Speedway.
There were people that thought Bobby, the legendary Hall of Famer, was crazy when he sent his inexperienced grandson and son to a full-time World of Outlaws schedule back in 2014. Back then, it was a widely held belief that the team would drop off the tour before the conclusion of the annual west coast spring trip.
They didn’t.
Nine years later, the scrappy underdog team from Pennsylvania are bonafide millionaires, and the driver that put them there wants to see to it that they all get a well-deserved piece of the pie.
"I'm just a small part of why this car is in Victory Lane," Schuchart told DIRTRACKR once the party began in the Shark Racing hauler early on Friday morning. "I get the fun job of gassing this thing up around some of the coolest race tracks in the country.
"The guys behind me work their butts off five to six days a week, in the hot sun, and they don't get paid what they deserve but they're about to get a good bonus now."
This is the same team that philosophically started with a single hauler back in 2014. They shared a single hotel room so everyone could take a shower on the road. They slept under the hauler if it made sense on the road.
Unsurprisingly, ‘Scruffy’ already knows exactly what those bonuses look like because within minutes of winning the races, the Sprint Car Hall of Fame driver turned team owner has already mapped out exactly how everything gets allocated.
"We get half the money for the race car and Logan gets the other half," Allen said. "We’ve got the bonuses for the crew, engine builder and then me, I got to pay bills back and get ready for next year. It’s like we just found an extra sponsor in the middle of the year."
What a definition racer.
This is typically the domain of Klingbeil, who specializes in marketing and communications, but he even conceded that ‘Scruffy’ is next level about these sort of details.
"Did you know he already line itemed everything," Klingbeil asked.
"I got it all figured out, this morning, I figured there would be $80,000 left over," Allen said.
It’s like he knew, and even if he didn’t, the 80-year-old always believed in both Schuchart and his son, who has also started to win and contend with a degree of regularity.
"I always believed," the elder Allen said. "It just takes time and I taught them a lot but they’re at the point now where they do this on their own. This is their win and I’m very proud."
And just the mere mention, second-hand of that conversation to Schuchart, and just how proud his granddad is and how much he never wavered in that conviction was enough to bring the 30-year-old racer to tears.
"It always make me feel good when I can…"
And then came the tears.
"When I can make him proud, make my family proud," Schuchart said.
He started to choke up again and then came the support from inside the hauler.
"It’s okay buddy, let it out."
"It’s a million dollars."
Schuchart took a big breath, wiped tears from his eyes and let it out.
"It’s just such a great feeling, man," Schuchart said. "I don’t have the words to express how I feel. It’s just all about the people who support me. They’re awesome."
Klingbeil won’t take a lot of the credit for the same reasons Schuchart didn’t because all of the boys played their roles in getting the team to this point but he’s absolutely the architect of the sponsorship and marketing activation side of Shark Racing.
"I am so happy for Logan," Klingbeil said. "I’m his step dad, but I can separate myself from that, and just say that objectively he is an even better person than he is a race car driver -- and he’s obviously a fantastic race car driver.
"He’s validated what he can do, but also, we have a ragtag group here. We’re going up against Kasey Kahne Racing, Tony Stewart Racing and Rico (Abreu) has Ricky Warner now. Logan is up there in the car during an open red, and we’ve got the shock notebook out on the frontstretch, and he’s calling the shots from inside the car."
That’s what makes the boys so special and it’s how the boys became millionaires on a Thursday night in New Weston.
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