(Editor’s note: This article, written by Land O’Lakes Region member Todd Stark, shows that motorsports isn’t only about getting on track. All too often, life throws speedbumps your way, keeping you from taking the green flag you had your eyes on. Todd’s journey and determination to get back on track is utterly inspiring. Also note that Todd’s FastDad Machine Works is now open for business making a multitude of custom parts, including formula car suspension mounts, headers, steering rack mounts, remote oil filter brackets, and more.)
In the fall of 2020, following a move to a new city in Minnesota, I was diagnosed with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. We were referred to a lung clinic that put me on a very expensive drug that slowed the progression, but would not stop it. My motorsports dreams began to slip away as I faced a journey that would test my determination in every way possible. Things were truly dark, and good times seemed like they might never return; little did I know that half a decade later, I’d be standing on the precipice of an amazing new motorsports adventure.
Back to that move: One reason we chose the house is that it has a 1,700 sq-ft garage with a very large center bay and a 13 ft x 10 ft garage door – it was perfect. The plan was to eventually open a machine shop and race car operation – a simple vision that would continue a lifelong motorsports dream.
My lung situation, however, was progressing, and by August 2021, I went to get qualified for a lung transplant. This took a week of testing. Also, COVID was in full swing, affecting everything medical related. Times were tough.
By this time, I was on oxygen. To keep working on the shop, I had to always have portable oxygen bottles with me, which proved to be a real inconvenience. I fabbed up some tubing long enough to reach everywhere in the shop, including going up to the 15 ft ceiling on a lift to do work – the oxygen bottle would just sit while I moved around.
(Setting up the shop, especially while on oxygen, was no easy feat.)
In November 2021, I was admitted to the hospital to be placed on high flow oxygen, and round about that time, I was added to the transplant list.
There’s a give and take for everything, and the “take” in this situation was that all my shop work instantly halted. It took until January 2022 for a pair of lungs to become available, but while the surgery was a success, it meant everything else (like my shop) came to a stop, because recovery is all-consuming.
That would all take away from my dream of owning a machine shop and my deep desire to race – neither of which were new interests in my life.
The Early Days
I’ve long been fascinated by cars and speed.
My dad and I built what we called Doodle bikes, which are tiny motorcycles with two-cycle engines on them. I’d take the Doodle bug on the service road and go faster than the cars on the freeway.
After going to a vo-tech school for two years to learn how to run heavy equipment, I decided to travel to England to the Jim Russell School for Racing Car Drivers at Snetterton Racetrack near Norwich – this was July 1972.
At the end of his schooling, Jim Russel invited everybody over to his house for a graduation party – it was a very special time.
I worked two jobs for about a year and a half to get the cash to go, and I saved about $10,000 for this venture. I did pretty good and got the fastest lap in my group in a Merlyn FF.
I looked for work in the auto industry and tried to get hired at Lotus; at the time, the Lotus factory was not far from Snetterton. Unfortunately, visas were strict back then and I was forced to return home.
I got construction work with earth-moving machinery and worked a plan out with my parents to stay at their house while I saved money to buy my first real race car. It was a Crossle 20f. I campaigned this around the upper Midwest – I did pretty good, too, winning in the wet when horsepower didn’t count so much. I did this for three years, but money became an issue, so I sold the car somewhere around 1976.
I hung around the tracks for a while, but life entered the picture with a wife, kids, houses, and everything that goes with that part of life’s adventure.
I met my wife Carol in December of 1985, and we got married a year and a half later. But it wasn’t long before the racetrack came calling once more.
I got involved with stockcars at the local racetracks and landed a ride in a Late Model bodied as a Buick. It wasn’t very competitive, so I stopped racing that car and chose to crew instead.
By this point, I was an ASE Master Technician and had been welding and working with metal for years. All of this, of course, leads back to the machine shop I was hoping to build prior to being diagnosed with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis.
Recovery Begins
Fast forward to February 2022 and I just got home after spending the better part of four months in the hospital.
In my mind, getting home is the best rehab possible. I slept a lot; staying motivated was hard. This lasted quite a long time – maybe a couple of years. I kept telling myself that my wife deserved much more than what I was producing. Also, I was carrying around somebody else’s lungs, and this was a huge motivator for me to perform.
As time passed, my ability to exercise got a lot better, and soon, progress. Then before I knew it, it was time to get life back on track. Quite literally.
One Step at a Time
I soon passed my racing physical exam, much to my doctor’s concerns. He even made me take a cognitive test just to make sure I was in my right mind – at least, that’s what I tell myself.
Remember that machine shop and race car operation I was once dreaming of?
(The shop is coming together and Todd is making parts.)
About a year and a half ago is when things really started to pick up with that part of the dream. I bought a Van Norman mill, a La Blond engine lathe, a walnut blaster, and a bunch of other equipment for my new company, FastDad Machine Works. This fit in with all the other equipment, like the multiple welders and gas torches, a Rogue tubing bender with notcher and all the tubing dies, compressed air, and various other equipment like sheet metal benders, drill presses, band saws, and more.
In other words, lots of equipment to fabricate and build stuff.
Which brings us to today.
Getting on the Gas
I’ve begun running ads on social media for FastDad Machine Works and FastDad Racing. Each site has its own Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube pages, with the former being the business that will hopefully help fund my racing (which is the latter).
Speaking of racing, I own a Carbir DS3 Pinto-powered Formula Continental®, which I’ve raced off and on since purchasing it in 2007. I still have it, and that’s what I’m working on now. I’m going to build it to incorporate some of my own ideas, both mechanical and aero. It’ll be fun to see what works.
(One day soon, Todd will be behind the wheel again.)
The plan is to attend the SCCA Drivers’ School and Double Regional at Blackhawk Farms Raceway in April and get that competition license going, although I’ll be renting a car for that event.
Through my racing connections, my hope is to build up FastDad Machine Works, which will help fund FastDad Racing. The ultimate goal is to compete for a National Championship – that’s right, I want to compete at the SCCA National Championship Runoffs®.
It’s been a wild few years, and I couldn’t be more thrilled that the weekend at Blackhawk Farms Raceway is around the corner. What a journey! And the next exciting chapter is only just beginning.
Photos courtesy Todd Stark
