Racing history is as much about the characters as it is about the cars and the races. When all is said and done, its the characters who have brought us from the back roads and moonshiners to the dirt tracks and then to the asphalt tracks, and ultimately to the superspeedways of Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Speedway.

One of the characters still creating and building upon the history of stock car racing is Andy Hillenburg. True racing devotees will know there are two Andy Hillenburgs. There is Indiana Andy Hillenburg, whom this story is about, and there is the World of Outlaws sprint car driver Oklahoma Andy Hillenburg. They are two very different guys but, according to Indiana Andy, they sometimes talked to each other on a Monday morning teasing the other for receiving credit for winning a weekend race that the other had actually won.

Andy, Indiana that is, gave me some time several years ago to do a story about him for one of the websites or publications I often contributed to. I was working with Christi Passmore, a young female sprint car driver moving into full bodied race cars. She had signed with Andy Belmont to race six ARCA races. Belmont required her to go through Hillenburgs school to be approved for ARCA racing.

We were on a break at Salem Speedway in Indiana where Christi was practicing for her first race there and Andy was tutoring her. We sat in a vehicle while I ran a bunch of questions by him and he answered openly about his life in racing and his dreams. While there may be some quotation marks here on some of the things he said, understand it has been five years or more since the interview and they may not be 100% accurate because I no longer have the tape of the interview or the notes but they are very close to what was actually said.

Andys first involvement in racing began with soap box derby cars. When he was old enough to race, he got into dirt sprint car racing around Indiana and the surrounding states. He said to me early on, My dream was to compete in the Indianapolis 500, and I achieved that dream with the help of Preston Root.

I also dreamed of competing in the Daytona 500, he said, almost in passing.

And I got to see that dream come true too.

So, here we have a young kid from Indiana thinking and dreaming about racing and he makes it happen with dirt sprint cars. Then the big time dreams begin like they do for thousands of other young racers. He wonders, like the other thousands of racers, if his time will ever come that he will get to race at Indy and Daytona. Andy is a stubborn guy and he is a purposeful guy too. I get the feeling talking to him that he never ever thought his opportunity would not come, and it did.

Now, its pretty heady stuff to be able to compete at Indianapolis and Daytona but what he accomplished in 1995 is something only a handful of competitors have done. In his rookie season competing with ARCA he not only won the rookie of the year award he also won the championship. His first career win came at Daytona driving a Ken Schrader car that season and fielded his own car to win the championship at Flat Rock Speedway. Talk about a championship season!

Andy acquired the racing school now called the Fast Track High Performance Driving School and has built it into something special for a lot of people. In addition to some of todays well known drivers passing through his school, a lot of fans who would otherwise never know what its like inside a high performance race car have enjoyed the experience. Some have opted for the ride along program and others have actually tooled the cars around places like Charlotte and Atlanta at something approaching race speeds.

Ever the racer, though, Andy has kept his hand in the actual racing. At times competing in the ARCA series, other times dabbling in NASCAR, testing for other drivers, and even racing some in sprint cars again not much more than five years ago he demonstrated he still enjoys the speed.

I mentioned earlier that I met Andy while working with Christi Passmore. Her fist season was limited to six races with ARCA but she continued to race her sprint car when not preparing for an ARCA race. Her dad, Glenn Passmore, an accomplished sprint car racer in his own right, loaned his sprint car to Andy so Andy and Christi could race at a tiny bullring of a dirt track just a quarter-mile long on the fairgrounds in Savannah, Missouri.

I confess to being biased about Christi and Andy but that night was one of the best sprint car races I ever saw. Both won their heat races and qualified for the feature. Both headed to the front from the drop of the green flag and in 20 short laps, they exchanged the lead of that race at least three times. Christi would put a slide job on Andy and by the next lap Andy would put a slide job on Christi. On the last lap, Christi put a slide job on Andy in turn four to barely win the race. These two, student and teacher, just put on one of the most thrilling races the Midwest had seen and I was so excited to be there to witness it.

Andy eventually got his own sprint car and a team shortly thereafter and did a little racing around the east coast. Such is the addiction this thing we call racing has for him.

I worked with Andy for a couple of seasons doing PR for A J Fike and Chad McCumbee as they raced in ARCA under his tutelage. During this time he was working on movies behind the scenes starting with the IMAX NASCAR movie.

He went across the country finding old cars for the ESPN Original Entertainment movie 3:The Dale Earnhardt Story, and a number of other movies. He told me he provided sixty cars to ESPN. His instructors did some of the driving in the movie and McCumbee, who was working for him at the time, tested for the part of Dale, jr. and was selected.

Andy even had a cameo appearance in the movie. If you saw the movie and remember the part where Barry Pepper in character as Dale Earnhardt was talking to Humpy Wheeler and some guy comes running towards them waving a gun, that was Andy.

I was with Andy another time at Salem Speedway when he was fielding a car for AJ Fike. AJ was a pretty good shoe but he was being coached by Andy in preparation for his first ARCA race at Salem.

ARCA at Salem is a thing of beauty. Beating and banging, running through the turns two abreast right up against the concrete walls, this is the stuff race fans want to have on their bucket list if theyve never been there. AJ is worrying about beating up the car, which looks fresh out of the car wash and covered with QuicShine 99. The two are leaning on a stack of tires. Andy stops talking, walks over to the car, hauls off and kicks the bejeepers out of the door panel.

There, he says, Now you wont have to worry about it anymore.

A few years back Andy called me and said, Leo, Im looking for a race track. If you hear of anything that might be available let me know.

I didnt know for sure then if Andy would ever buy a race track but I was pretty sure he was serious about it. A few years go by, I lose my mind completely and start doing some racing at Citrus County Speedway in Inverness, Florida. I dont hear from my racing contacts as often as I used to but one day someone tells me Andy purchased Rockingham. I had him figured for a short track.

I covered the first ARCA race at Rockingham for Late Model Racer magazine and was impressed with the work he had done on the track and how well he promoted the race. I asked him for a quote after the race and he said. It went pretty well and Im satisfied we had a good race. Well just do it again next year and do it better.

Once I got to know Andy, I developed great respect for him. He has his own colorful-character side. Some of it is humorous (he enjoys a good laugh), some of it is stubbornness, some of it is dedication to the sport and the business, and some of it is just plain hard work. He is a guy that gets up every morning and goes to work. He works until the work is done every day and then gets up the next day and does it all over again. He struggles through the hard times of racing and has found a way to eek out a living from a very hard and unforgiving business.

Andy is one of the important characters in the developing history of racing. He has made his own personal history racing the short tracks and big tracks, both dirt and asphalt. He has also found a way to make a living in racing by growing a racing school into a well-respected business and the school one must get approval from to race in ARCA. He has somehow found the time to race and the time to be a car owner. He is the go-to guy for movies involving race cars and racing. And he is the guy bringing Rockingham back from the grave and doing it well.

He runs a race team, a race school, and a race track and he makes it look easy. How the hell he does it is beyond comprehension to me, but he does it. He is one of racings great characters even if much of what he does is behind the scenes. Guys like him make racing what it is for those of us who love to watch it and who love the characters racing produces.

I just thought some of his fans might like to know a little more about this guy who works so hard behind the scenes making things happen.