Success has come fast for Frank Varner since the veteran racer began racing hobby stocks last year.
In 15 races the last two seasons, Varner has 11 wins, including six in 2019, and three at Stateline Speedway, where he won the championship in the track’s Johnson Surveying Hobby Stocks division.
Varner spent last season getting his car ready, and raced a couple of times at Stateline, a NASCAR Weekly Racing Series sanctioned quarter-mile banked oval track in Post Falls, Idaho.
It took no time for the wins to start coming for Varner.
“I almost broke the track record the first time out,” Varner said.
Stateline Speedway | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
Varner chalks his success up to those around him, including his cousin, Mike Behar, who helps with the set up, and his long-time engine builder Reggie Rowe.
“It’s just because I did my homework, I did what I was told to do by the people behind me and that makes it a lot easier,” Varner said. “When you listen to one person, not ask five different people and put it all together. I stick to one.”
On race days, Varner has an all-female crew helping him in the pits: his girlfriend, Cindi, his daughters Ashley and Samantha, and Samantha’s friend Dana.
Varner and Ashley have been racing together for two decades since she was 8 years old.
“The technical side of it not as much, but hands-on changing tires, she did all the tire work so I don’t have to mess with that. She sized them and did all of that for me. All I had to do was turn the wheel,” Varner said.
“My youngest daughter (Samantha), she doesn’t want to race but she likes to help. She’s an important part of the team as well. We all have fun doing it. One of her friends she goes to high school with, was into motorcycles and that kind of stuff and she wanted to come help. They all have their own little part that they do so it makes it fun for them and takes stress off of me.”
Stateline Speedway 2019 Points Standings
Varner previously raced at Stateline from 1985-1991, then got out of the driver’s seat to help Ashley race. He returned more than a decade later, and won two straight championships in baby grands.
After selling those cars, Varner took time away again to help with his cousin Nicole Behar’s NASCAR West Series team, as well as helping on a super late model team.
But the draw to get back behind the wheel never truly left.
“I was okay with not doing it but my girlfriend talked me into it, so we found a car and started working on it,” he said. “Once it’s in your blood you can’t really get it out, as much as I tried.”
Since then, it’s been nothing but success for Varner and his all-female squad. The only races they didn’t win in 2019 was a second place the first race of the season at Stateline, and the championship race, which he finished 13th after suffering a flat tire 12 laps in.
“We still won it (the championship) and that was really my goal,” he said. “We still celebrated, so that was a good thing.”
Hobby stocks is where Varner plans to stay in 2020. He has a lot of friends in the class, which makes it more fun.
“That’s where my budget is. I’m a firm believer in, do what you can do the best you can do it, not do what you can do and try to do it,” he said. “It’s what I can afford to do and it’s fun. I don’t like to go to the race track and stress out. Although I had to a couple times last year, but I try not to.”
There’s one more big reason Varner wants to stay in his hobby stock car. His last two championships came back-to-back in 2015 and 2016, and he’d like to do the same in his new division.
If his success in 2019 is any indication, he’ll have another really good chance of repeating come next season.
“It’s been a pretty easy ride, and I’m like, ‘It’s going to come to an end, I can feel it but I don’t know when.’ I’m just waiting for it,” Varner said.
“It feels great. It feels good to show up at a race track and people know that that’s one of the cars to beat. It makes me feel good that all the hard work that we put into it is able to show like that.”