Local motor racing fans and even a few who aren’t will be rooting for Ryan Blaney in the No. 21 car at next week’s Coca-Cola 600 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. The 23-year-old Ohioan will have Sgt. Greg Belanger’s name emblazoned across the windshield of his Ford Fusion during NASCAR’s “600 Miles of Remembrance” to fallen soldiers.
The 23-year-old Blaney is 11th in the NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series point standings. He’s a relative newcomer with 15 top-ten finishes in 65 career races since 2014. He’s driven 17,493 laps and earned over $1.8 million, and May 28 would be a fitting occasion to win his first checkered flag.
“Each of the fallen soldiers’ names tells a story of honor and sacrifice,” said NASCAR chief Brent Dewar. “We’re proud to honor all fallen service members to help ensure their stories and lives are never forgotten.”
Belanger grew up on Old Wapping Road in Deerfield, played little league baseball next to the Old Deerfield Grammar School and captained the wrestling team at Frontier Regional School.
He joined the Reserves in peacetime to earn money for college and was called to duty two years after the 9/11 attacks. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, he was assigned to the 325th Military Intelligence Battalion in Hillah, Iraq, near the ancient city of Babylon. He volunteered for a convoy on Aug. 27, 2003, and was killed by a roadside bomb.
His death shocked the community, including Sunderland’s Darin Russell who was in North Carolina. “I was down here racing. It might’ve been my mom (Niki Russell) that called. It was heartbreaking to know someone I’m that close to had died.”
The two were classmates until Russell left Frontier after the 10th grade to enroll at Franklin County Techical School. “We played football together. He was the guy you wanted on your team in gym class.”
Russell was 14-years-old the day he wandered into Eddie Korpita’s garage and got his first glimpse of a race car. “I was infatuated. Eddie asked if I wanted to help. Later, I raced strictly stock at Monadnock, a Monte Carlo, and I loved it. I was hooked.”
He learned engine mechanics under the tutelage of John Fortin and Jason Boron at Tech, and spent a year studying at the Nashville Auto-Diesel College, now called Lincoln Tech. He moved to Charlotte, armed with a stack of resumes and was determined to find a high-end mechanic’s job. “North Carolina is where racing is based. All the shops are around Charlotte. NASCAR’s Hall of Fame is in Charlotte. It was the place to be.”
His arduous search ended the day he saw somebody trying to fix a broken door lock. “I thought he was the janitor. I asked if I could leave my resume and he said, ‘C’mon in, let’s talk.’ It was Mike Ege, the head engine builder for Robert Yates Racing. I guess he liked me, because he said to call and to keep calling. ‘It’ll seem like I’m putting you off, but when I have a spot for you, I’ll fit you in.’”
A few months later, Russell was home for Christmas and Ege called with a job offer to fix cylinder heads. Russell was thrilled, but he made an unusual request: “I wanted to travel so bad, I told him I wanna go to tear-down.”
It was like asking for a job in the mail room.
“Tear-down’s the low man on the totem pole. It’s where the engine comes back (after a race) and gets torn down— disassembled, repaired, parts replaced, everything gets cleaned up. When he asked why, I said wanted to know everything about an engine before I went on the road.”
That was 18 years ago, and today he tunes engines for Woods Brothers Racing under the Team Penske racing umbrella. “Our shop builds the cars turn-key ready to hit the race track and follow it straight through to race day.
Every Thursday, he and his colleagues board a private jet bound for the next Series event and wait for the truck to pull in with the No. 21 Car. “It’s hard to put a price on it, but parts alone you’re looking at, engine and everything, $300,000 to $400,000. The average sponsor is $15 million a year for one car.
“Stress? Yeah there’s stress, and stress on the engine itself doing 500 or 600 miles around the track. We gotta make sure our car is as fast as it can go, that it’s in tip-top shape with the air-fuel mixtures, parts conditioning, valves springs — those are probably the weakest part of the engine, the RPMs turn ’em into spaghetti.
“The endurance Ryan and these other guys go through is amazing. The cockpit air temp is 130-140 degrees with a little AC blowing through your helmet to keep your mind right, but your body loses about eight pounds of water weight.”
The 36-year-old Russell was determined to get his friend’s name on the No. 21 car. Windshield headers are usually reserved for the drivers’ last names, but this is the third consecutive Memorial Day weekend that NASCAR will feature the names of fallen soldiers on all 40 cars.
“A month ago I called Len Wood the owner of the race team and he gave me the go-ahead.”
Russell sent Belanger’s biography to NASCAR and got the thumbs-up, then contacted Belanger’s sister Allison Burnham. “Of course, we said ‘yes,’” she said.
Greg’s father Ed and his brother Jeff will be trackside. “Darin called us. He said we could bring as many as we wanted, so Jeff’s girlfriend Heather Willard is coming with us. We’re gonna sit in the pits, go to the driver’s meeting. Earplugs? Yeah, probably,” Ed laughed.
The race is a week from Sunday at 6 p.m. and will be televised on Fox Sports. “I’m proud to be honoring Greg on our car next weekend,” said Russell. “He was such a good guy.”