The flashing blue lights appeared suddenly like a shooting star over the dark desert sky. Sleep deprived at 2 a.m. hauling a race car in the back of his own truck down Interstate 10 through the West Texas plains, Rick Crawford very well could have been seeing things. But these were the real blue lights of a Texas Highway Patrolman.

Crawford pulled over and got out to walk back to meet the officer and see what was wrong. His rig was about 40 feet long, so he didn't want the patrolman stewing while he walked to the cab.

"Is there a problem, officer?" Crawford asked, slightly confused. He wasn't speeding; his rig loaded down with a race car headed to the Copper Classic in Phoenix simply wouldn't go that fast. And on a desolate highway near Sonora, Texas, at 2 in the morning, there wasn't anybody for him to have cut off. Crawford liked traveling at night because the cooler temperatures resulted in fewer blown tires as he traipsed around the South short-track racing with his own team. And for this 30-hour trip from South Alabama to Phoenix, night travel was the only way. This time, however, it got him pulled over.

"Well, your taillights are out," the officer replied.

Crawford could quickly fix the problem -- it was an electrical connection under the bumper. But the officer wasn't keen on any roadside repairs.

"Rather than working on it out here on my interstate, why don't you take it on down about 20, 25 more miles to Exit 372 down there," he told Crawford. "I'm going to follow you most of the way and then I'm going to turn around and come back. If you'll pull off down there at that exit, there's a lighted parking lot, a big truck stop down there, and they've got plenty of room for you to fix your lights."

Crawford obliged. Exit 372 it was.

The officer followed Crawford most of the way, then returned to his post. A few miles later, there it was: Exit 372. Crawford couldn't believe what he saw. It was an oasis, to borrow his words -- the biggest truck stop he could have imagined. Lights so bright he could have used sunglasses on this dark night. Plenty of room to repair his rig. And over to the side was a 100x200-foot building enclosed in glass. Inside were two IndyCars, a Cup race car, two racing boats with blown motors, a roadster, a Cobra and a Ford GT. For a guy who drove General Motors products, the Ford museum he gazed into was a peep show.

"I'm thinking, you've been up too long. You've been working on your car too long. You've been going down the interstate, the state trooper's done pulled you over, this guy's fixing to wake you up ... and now you've just seen a mirage," Crawford laughed. "I mean, I could name all these cars that's in this museum and I'm like, wow, who owns this place? Wow really hits you."

That was in 1986, and the owner of the truck stop was Tom Mitchell -- rancher, race team owner, family man and loyal mentor. Five years later, Crawford would be driving for him.

"That's how we are."

Circle Bar Racing

Tom Mitchell (center), his daughter, Lisa, and son, Gary, run different aspects of the family business.

Tom Mitchell rebuilt his first engine when he was 12 years old ... in his mother's living room. He cleaned the engine parts in her bathtub.

That was Mitchell when he was growing up: hands-on, not afraid to get dirty, and overflowing with a desire for speed. Mitchell's family business was ranching. His father lived and worked on their ranch, while his mother kept up the house in the city so young Tom could go to school and get an education. But he hated school. He wanted to be on the ranch with his dad or under the hood of a vehicle.

During the week after school, Mitchell would go hang out at a local Ford dealership in Ozona, Texas, just to be around motors. He became friends with the mechanics there and began working on some of the parts in the shop. On the weekends, he'd go to work on the ranch. When one of his uncles was shipped off for World War II, he left an old broken down Ford truck in the barn. It wouldn't run and had transmission problems. Mitchell wanted something to drive, so he worked on the engine until he got it in running order. "Tom Mitchell is a genius with a Ford engine," his daughter, Lisa Mitchell, said. "It's always been a part of what he's done. He's always done his own thing, and it's been his passion." He'd drive that truck 50 miles from the city home in Ozona to the family ranch. He was 12 then.

Mitchell went into the Air Force as a teenager and worked as a line mechanic on B-36 bombers -- the largest mass-produced piston engine aircraft ever made. When he returned, he still had a reputation around town as having the fastest hot-rod in the county despite being out of high school for several years. Part of that reputation was kept alive by him racing alcohol-fueled go-karts around the area and his love for motorcycles. A lady who lived near Mitchell when he was in his 20s once told his daughter, "Your dad was quite a tyrant. We couldn't ride down the street behind our house because he would jump his Harley-Davidson over the hedges. We were all scared to drive down the street because Tom might be on a tear that day."

Circle Bar Racing

Tom Mitchell has riden a Harley-Davidson since he was a teenager.

Now in his 70s, Mitchell still rides his Harley.

"That's his getaway time to get out and think and reflect," Lisa said. "He's such a laid-back person -- always sees the positive side and has a sense of humor. That's really the only thing I really ever hear him complain about -- bad weather days when he can't get out and ride his motorcycle."

Just like his parents did before him, he began cattle ranching in the mid-1950s once he married high school sweetheart Tissie and the two had children. But Mitchell struck gold when natural gas was discovered on his land. The work, however, continued; the family began raising sheep and the kids pitched in during the summertime when they were out of school.

When daughter Lisa was in grade school, the family noticed that none of the local kids had a place to congregate. The old movie theater was battered and unsafe.

"My parents decided that wasn't going to work; they wanted a nice place for kids in our community to hang out," Lisa Mitchell said. "So they built a drive-in theater that had a sit-down auditorium plus you could look through the glass and people were in their cars. It was a huge success. He would come in from the ranch and we'd all gather up. My mom would work and cook and do the concession stand. We had friends who would help out. When I was in grade school I was under my dad's wing running the movie projectors, switching reels between the cameras."

Child labor? Ha. That was family time for the Mitchells.

"Being together as a family working is our time together," Lisa Mitchell said. "It was work and they didn't do it because they had to have the money. That's kind of how we are."

"The Texas handshake"

"You have certain people in the garage area that you can go to and talk to ... One of the people that's in the Truck Series is Rick Crawford." -- Wayne Auton

Crawford got his racing career started on the short tracks across South Alabama and the Gulf Coast, where a lot of the locals helped him out by teaching him to do things "the right way." His grandfather, Frank Bielarski, owned NASCAR cars in the 1950s and '60s. His uncle, Buddy Bielarski, drove super modifieds in the '60s and '70s.

"A lot of people took the time out to teach me different things about racing -- not only driving but mechanicing, because I did both," Crawford said. "My biggest supporters were my family as far as my grandfather and my uncle, teaching me how to do it the right way -- the way they did it. If you do it right, you only have to do it once. So that was the biggest thing that saved time and money for me to be able to race on my own."

Rick Crawford

Truck Series Statistics

Year	Wins	Top-5	Top-10	Avg. Finish	Rank
1997	0	1	10	14.5	12
1998	1	4	5	18.4	18
1999	0	3	10	15.0	14
2000	0	2	12	12.1	11
2001	0	10	16	10.7	8
2002	0	12	17	7.2	2
2003	1	10	16	9.0	7
2004	1	4	9	15.0	12
2005	1	3	11	15.0	16
2006	1	5	13	12.6	9
2007	0	11	18	9.4	5
2008	0	7	13	11.3	7
2009	0	1	1	14.0	10
Totals	5	73	151	12.7

Crawford's plan was clear: Race where people noticed you. He conquered the Gulf Coast and South Alabama. He raced on television. He moved to NASCAR's All-Pro Series in the mid-'80s to continue to test himself against better competition. And in 1986 he began hauling his own car to the Copper Classic each January to race against the best -- and in front of a national set of eyes. That's when he got pulled over, and that detour to Circle Bar Truck Corral in Ozona turned out to be a prophetic pit stop.

Mitchell had run a CART race team for a few years, and even put a Cup car on the track for 18 races between 1985 and '86 before concentrating on NASCAR's All-Pro Series. John Kelly was the driver at Mitchell's Circle Bar Racing team. Kelly's brother, Robert, was the head engine builder for Crawford, but moved to the Circle Bar team as crew chief for John. The existing relationship between the Kellys and Crawford ended up in Crawford practicing the Circle Bar car for a few laps one weekend. The results turned heads.

"I practiced their car one time and headlines in the next day's paper were I was quickest in a Ford. Back then, I drove General Motors products. And when it said, 'had quick time with a Ford,' everybody wanted to know whose it was," Crawford remembered. "It was Mr. Mitchell's car, the Circle Bar Truck Corral Ford Thunderbird."

Mitchell had plans to shut down the team after the 1990 season. He was finished with racing. He had been burned a few times on business deals, and had lost the glow and enjoyment of racing, according to his daughter.

Crawford switched to Ford products and purchased some equipment from Mitchell's team. He had success with it, but he needed more. He needed strong backing with a rock-solid foundation. So he called Mitchell's office again. He got the secretary.

"She shielded my dad from Rick for quite a while, which was her job -- to screen things," said Lisa Mitchell, who handles her father's media requests now. "And I think at some point that Rick -- he's such a low-key, nice, gentleman-type person and has that personality -- it's almost like he won her over. Once he convinced her he wasn't a bad guy out to get Tom, she kind of let the doors open a little bit for Dad to interact with Rick."

Crawford's persistence rekindled Tom Mitchell's flame.

"He came out several times from Mobile and met with my dad one-on-one, and I think that was a lot of it," Lisa Mitchell said. "Rick is such a genuinely nice guy that he can easily win you over as a friend because he has a lot of integrity and personality. Anybody that's spent much time with him with probably tell you the same thing."

Truck Series director Wayne Auton came up through the ranks with Crawford, dating back to the All-Pro Series.

"The more you're around him, the more you feel like, wow, this guy is a special person that was put on this earth for a reason," Auton said. "Just to be around him, you learn that. You learn it because of his actions in the garage area.

"You have certain people in the garage area that you can go to and talk to and know that you're going to get a straight-up answer; you're going to get an honest answer. There's going to be times that you don't like what they say, but there are times that they don't like what we say. One of the people that's in the Truck Series is Rick Crawford."

“

In 18 years, I can't think ... of one mistake that he's made. I have made some and he's helped me out of them. But always speaking, Tom Mitchell makes great decisions.

”

RICK CRAWFORD

Tom Mitchell learned it through Crawford's professionalism, going back to doing things "the right way." He trusted Crawford with his race team. Three months after those first phone calls, Circle Bar Racing was back in the All-Pro Series in 1991 with Crawford as driver and also running the shop from Cleveland, Ga.

The team was championship-caliber each year, consistently finishing in the top 10. Meanwhile, NASCAR was forming its new national series racing trucks in 1995, primarily holding events on the West Coast. Mitchell figured he'd keep an eye on it.

"What he really wanted to see was the backing that NASCAR put into the series: Did it have a title sponsor, which was Craftsman? Did the big three of NASCAR support the series? How much growth was it going to have?" Crawford said. "So he sat back and watched it."

The '96 season was special. Crawford led the points in the All-Pro Series for much of the season and won three races. But the flame was starting to die again. Crawford wanted something more, but he wasn't sure what direction he wanted the team to go. Mitchell, however, was quite certain.

"At the end of the '96 season in the car racing, he came to me and said, 'Why don't we give that Truck Series a try?'" Crawford said.

Crawford ordered a truck. He got longtime motor partner Lozano Bros. to build an engine. And on Jan. 19, 1997, Circle Bar Racing's No. 14 Ford finished 11th at Disney World Speedway in the season opener.

Mitchell chose not to jump directly into the Truck Series. Rather, he waited until the series showed signs of stability. In the first race of the circuit's inaugural 1995 season, ironically titled the Skoal Bandit Copper World Classic at Phoenix International Raceway, four trucks were fielded by established organizations: Richard Childress Racing, Hendrick Motorsports and Dale Earnhardt Inc. Jack Roush didn't get into the series until 1996. Mitchell came the next year.

"That's Tom Mitchell," Crawford said. "In 18 years, I can't think -- now he might admit to it, but I can't think -- of one mistake that he's made. I have made some and he's helped me out of them. But always speaking, Tom Mitchell makes great decisions."

One of those has been handing his race team over to Crawford.

The veteran racer is one of the few remaining throwbacks to the old days of owner/drivers who run the show. Crawford oversees the shop in Concord, N.C., in a general manager-type role during the week and driver on the race weekends.

"He has a very, very small turnover in his organization, which is unheard of in this business," Auton said. "I sort of relate his team to the earlier days of Richard Childress and Dale Earnhardt. You saw all the guys walk in the race track together, including Dale, and you saw them walk out of the race track. That's the way Rick Crawford runs his organization."

But it's Mitchell's organization, and nobody mistakes that.

"I always try to lean on Mr. Mitchell, and I always get the correct answer out of that," Crawford said. "He was the kind of guy to say let's keep an eye on this for a little while -- the old Texas look. And when he saw that it was time, he'd give you the nod and the Texas handshake and said let's do this. Boy, it was the right time to do it because we've been doing it for quite a while."

"That's Tom Mitchell ..."

"It's because we respect the family in Soutwest Texas ... that if it wasn't for them, we wouldn't be able to enjoy what we're doing." -- Rick Crawford

In 18 years of partnering with Crawford, Mitchell has never been to a race. He never visited the old All-Pro Series shop in Georgia, and he's not been to the current shop in Concord -- which is where Alan Kulwicki's independent team once operated.

Age has been the biggest reason Mitchell has stayed home, daughter Lisa said. She runs the business side of the outfit and would travel to more races if her at-home schedule permitted. Crawford handles the race operations.

An absentee owner, however, Mitchell is not. Each year Mitchell invites Crawford and a few others to his ranch for a deer hunting trip.

"Of all the guys at this shop, there's only been one or two guys out of 40 employees that have met Mr. Mitchell," said crew chief Cowboy Starland. "He's a unique individual. I can't describe it. He's intuitive for a guy that's never been to any of the Truck races and hasn't been to the shop, and to see how much this guy really knows what's going on -- he has the confidence in us."

Each Monday, Crawford calls Mitchell to report the weekend's happenings, discuss business transactions on the horizon and talk about the team in general. Crawford has won five Truck Series races for Mitchell, and each time the trophy is delivered personally to Ozona.

The trust Mitchell has shown in Crawford for nearly two decades has resulted in a father-son relationship between the two. The reason?

"What I feel is probably the reason why this team keeps performing ... is because this team is run as if Tom Mitchell was standing here. I see to it that way," Crawford said. "Every decision I make, every time I talk to somebody or whatever, I do it as if the man was sitting here. So our race team is run and the people are working -- it ain't because Rick Crawford is here, it ain't because Cowboy Starland is the crew chief on the 14. It's because we respect the family in Soutwest Texas, the Mitchell family -- the whole family -- that if it wasn't for them, we wouldn't be able to enjoy what we're doing."

Rick Crawford had his 250th start at Atlanta in 2007, and his 300th at AMS earlier this year, celebrating with Lisa Mitchell.

“

He's brought me this far. Everybody knows that. Rick Crawford wouldn't be where he's at today without Tom Mitchell.

”

RICK CRAWFORD

Earlier this season, Mike Skinner was talking with Crawford in the Truck Series garage. They are two of three veterans in the series that are 50 years old and still competing on a championship level.

"When I retire from driving, I would like to do what you do," Skinner told Crawford.

Crawford, a little confused, looked back and wondered what he meant. He still drives like Skinner. They're close in age. They both are successful.

"What is it that I do?" Crawford finally asked.

"You keep that train on the tracks," Skinner replied.

That stuck with Crawford. His responsibilities at Circle Bar Racing go beyond the cockpit of the truck and into the garage and front office. He's responsible for maintaining a rock-solid reputation Mitchell has built over time. And he's responsible for putting a premier product on the race track, from the shop on Monday to the checkered flag that weekend.

Crawford keeps his eye on things, for sure. He walks through the shop making sure his people are performing. He has to. He owes that much to Mitchell. "I'm very loyal and dedicated and focused to my job. And I do it because of the Mitchell family," Crawford said.

That loyalty has been proven in the past. Phone calls came after he won the season-opening race his second year in the Truck Series. They came when he finished second in the Truck standings in 2002, just 46 points behind champion Mike Bliss. They came when he won Daytona in 2003. There were strong opportunities in front of him in 2000 and again in 2004 to jump to the Cup Series.

Jack Roush approached Crawford with the opportunity to run a few Cup races in one of his cars. "Rick, you've been on my radar for a long time," Roush told Crawford. "But you drive for Tom Mitchell."

That made Crawford proud.

"It's like, well who brought you to the dance?" he said. "That weighed a lot on me."

Crawford admitted if he had another Cup offer, he'd seriously consider it. But he's clear that he'd never seek that on his own, and it would never replace or conflict with his top priorities -- the Truck team and Mitchell's goals. Translation: He'd take it to Mitchell in Ozona and ask him for advice.

He's also asked Mitchell about elevating Circle Bar Racing to Nationwide or Cup. The response from the boss: "I like the trucks."

It's fitting. In addition to the ranch where Mitchell's son, Gary, runs hunting excursions, the family owns an RV park and motel and the local cable company. The rest of the family business is trucking -- the Circle Bar Truck Corral off Exit 372 and the race team, which is sponsored by Navistar International Corporation, a leading company in transportation and trucking.

So at Atlanta last month, Crawford stood on pit road gazing at the hood of his No. 14 Ford F-150. The inscription said it all:

"Rick Crawford's 300th start" was in bold lettering. And directly under it was "with Tom Mitchell."

"I couldn't have done it without Mr. Mitchell, and I called him that morning and told him that. Without his involvement, without me driving for Circle Bar Racing, I never could have made it for that many starts or probably even in the Truck Series. So that's the reason you saw the decal on the hood of the truck. It says 'Rick Crawford, 300 starts ... with Tom Mitchell.' So without him, I knew I wouldn't have been there. He's brought me this far. Everybody knows that. Rick Crawford wouldn't be where he's at today without Tom Mitchell."

Even on a day in which Crawford was in the spotlight, he pointed the praise toward Southwest Texas.

"That goes back to Tom Mitchell," Lisa Mitchell said. "He sets you up for success and he stands back and gives you the opportunity to be successful. I think that's an attribute to Rick that he was able to pick up on that. And when you put Rick's hard work and efforts and talent alongside his ability and willingness to pay respect to my dad, it works."