Rob, who hails from Caistorville, has a long history with
Dipper, having lived in the same neighborhood in St. Catherines from the ages of
around seven to ten. Randy Williamson also lived in that area, and they were all
friends. “We all carried on and had bike races and so forth in the back yard,”
he recalls. “We met again later on when this deal got together, and I’ve been
here for the last five years.”
Rob’s start in racing came at five years old when his
father took him to Merrittville Speedway. He got the bug from there. Unlike most
of the others, he hasn’t been involved with driving, except for a few hot laps
and a mechanics race at Brewerton. “I was always more interested in working on
the cars than driving them,” he noted.
In that regard, he has substantial experience in the
technical area. He explained, “At the age of fifteen, I got involved with a late
model car out of Dunnville, that ran at Merrittville weekly. From that point I
moved on and went to work for Harley Turner with his late model car, and he
progressed to a 320 small block. I was with him for two or three years. In
between that, I worked with Randy (Williamson) and Pete (Bicknell) on a couple
of occasions.”
After that Rob took time off from racing, as he had an
impending marriage and a career to think about. He works for a heavy industrial
construction company, Bermingham Foundation Solutions, in Hamilton, which builds
basements, bridges, and buildings. He’s been with them for thirty-two years.
After about seven years away from the sport, he slowly
got back into it, helping Tim Lipsett with his sportsman car for about four
years. He was partners on the car. After
re-connecting with Dipper and Randy, he brought that car with him. “We had a
meeting and decided that if I brought my car over, we’d have a two car team.
That’s actually the first year we started running Friday night at Ransomville,
Saturday at Merrittville, Sunday at Humberstone, all the Series races, and
Syracuse. I think we did seventy races that year. I’ve been with them for five
years. It’s been a great experience, working with all of these talented people,
and I’m learning everyday.”
Rob’s duties include keeping all of the records, a time
consuming job, that is vitally important to the team’s effort. He’s also deals
with the scaling of the car and is heavily involved in the shock setup, which
has become an art form in the last few years with the quantum leap in shock
technology and its importance in the handling of the car. He also helps with the
initial setup on the car for race day.
The record keeping may sound mundane, but it radically
affects the performance on the track. Rob described the process, declaring, “We
have a computer on hand at all times. We have scale sheets that we do for each
track and since we have two cars, we do sheets for each individual car. We
pre-scale in midweek and also take it to the track. All the adjustments we make
during the race are also recorded on the sheet. All that information goes into a
folder for that particular night. We refer to these sheets when we set up for
each track, and they are constantly being updated.”
In sum, Rob concluded, “We have great experience on this
team, and we all share in discussions about what we’re doing to make the car
better and improve it every week. It’s a very good mix, and it’s good to be that
diverse. Mat’s gained so much experience over the last couple years and with him
being able to tell us what’s happening in the seat itself and all of us getting
together, it’s absolutely a great way to work. I have fun every
day.”
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