Rookie Hmiel happy to have early start in Busch

TALLADEGA, Ala. -- Disoriented from a hefty dose of medication ingested to suppress the pain of wisdom teeth removal, Shane Hmiel didn’t fully grasp the profoundness of what he’d just heard.

All of them? You sure?

	Shane Hmiel

“It was two weeks after I got my wisdom teeth out, and I was still out of it when somebody told me I was driving all the races,” said Hmiel, scratching his head with a slight grin. “I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I remember hearing that now.’ Pretty big deal to forget, huh?”

It was only the biggest news of his life. George deBidart had decided to field a full time NASCAR Busch Series team for the 21-year-old driver, one whose racing experience consisted of a mere one year of touring competition.

“For a 21-year-old kid that was racing Darlington Dash cars last year, I think that myself and George gave him the break of his life,” said Kenny Wallace, Hmiel’s teammate and mentor at Innovative Motorsports. “How many kids can be given a full Busch ride with so little experience? Not too many. That’s a dream come true.”

“Hell, I’d forgot all about it,” said Hmiel in typical, aw-shucks fashion.

People shouldn’t soon forget the name Shane Hmiel. Despite his lack of experience, this kid is no everyday talent. Ask his teammate.

“Shane is, to me, a real diamond in the rough,” Wallace said. “He’s incredibly talented. He reminds me a lot of Jeff Gordon. He really does.

“The way he runs the corner, throttles the car, uses his entries. He’s wrecked a lot this year, but you gotta remember Jeff wrecked 12 damn Winston cup cars in his first year, too. Guys like that, they wreck and can’t figure out why. As they get knowledge, they end up learning why. After that, look out.”

Hmiel, a Busch Series rookie just one year removed from the Goody’s Dash Series, is the son of Dale Earnhardt, Inc. team manager Steve Hmiel. Thus, he grew up engrossed in the intricacies of the race car -- building it, much more so than driving it. That said, he is adamantly in favor of the philosophy that car makes driver.

“I’m one of those drivers who thinks that the driver will never be as good as the car,” Hmiel said. “I don’t know if that comes from having a crew chief-background Dad or what, but I truly believe that the car makes the driver.

“I’d have to say my Dad is the biggest inspiration in my life and career. He was always gone, so I figured if I could get into racing I’d get to be with my Dad all the time. I love working on race cars, built my own from the ground up when I was 19 years old. Me and a couple buddies built one from scratch. I can do that, but I just enjoy driving so much, too.”

He’s not so bad at it, either. Just last weekend at Nashville, Hmiel shocked the series by earning his first career Bud Pole. In doing so, he fulfilled a lifelong dream.

“When I was 10 years old I wanted to win a Busch pole,” he said. “Now I have and I got the hat to prove it. I’ma show it to everybody.”

He wasn’t kidding. From the moment that hat was plopped on his head until the drivers were summoned to their cars to start the race, he donned the lid proudly. Speaking of Budweiser, Hmiel has long been chummy with its most recent cash cow, Dale Earnhardt, Jr.

“Me and Shane are real good buddies,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “His dad, Steve, has worked for DEI for a while. My Dad brought him over here, so I got a big admiration for Steve. I didn’t realize Steve had a boy near my age.

“We just started hangin’ out and naturally became friends. He’s a real cool cat, a good kid and a helluva talent behind the wheel. We just hang out and try to keep it real. He’s definitely got what it takes.”

Junior might not know it, but he’s played an integral role in Hmiel’s progression as a driver.

“He teaches me a lot, actually,” Hmiel said of Earnhardt Jr. “It’s kind of funny how much he teaches me without actually telling me what to do in a rac ecar. He tells me what I need to do sometimes and it’s always right on.”

One such lesson came after Hmiel had wrecked two weeks in a row at Rockingham and Vegas.

“A couple of weeks in a row right after Daytona I got into some crashes and he told me I needed to slow down, that everybody thinks I’m a pretty good racecar driver but they’re not gonna give me a chance if I keep crashing. He’s so good. I think, give him five years, heck maybe even two, and he’ll have a Winston Cup championship.”

Hmiel hopes to one day battle Junior at the Winston Cup level, but at that this point he’s just glad to be here.

“We’re building ground for me so that when (Innovative Motorsports) goes Winston Cup, it’ll be something for me to race,” Hmiel said. “That’s what I think will happen. I’m 21 years old. In four years, I’m 25 and oughta be halfway decent by then.

“It’s kinda hard to say what really made me want to be in racing so bad, but I definitely want to be here, need to be here,” Hmiel said. “If I didn’t do this, I’d be building bridges or something. This is a helluva lot more fun than that, so I’m glad to be here.”