Competitors in the Championship Auto Racing Series (CARS) Late Model Stock Tour will see a new face when they roll their cars through the tech shed — but the new face may be familiar to many of them.
Long-time tech official Mike Bushee will be the head tech official for the CARS Late Model Stock Tour.
So, who is Mike Bushee? Bushee is a veteran of the sport who has spent his entire life in racing. He is now 44 years old and has been in racing since 1978 when he went to Lebanon Valley Speedway in New York with his dad.
“Started racing at Lebanon Valley, New York,” Bushee said. “Moved down here and started at Wilson County Speedway and won the first two times we were there. Then I worked on anything from a U-CAR to ARCA, Late Models, Super Late Models, dirt Super Late Models, Four Cylinders, you name it. I’m working on two Street Stocks, one for my son, one for me and one I’ll rent out whenever I have time.”
Along with being active in racing, Bushee’s mechanical skills have earned him jobs at several tracks throughout the years — including Southern National Motorsports Park which is located just outside of Kenly, North Carolina where he worked at from opening day up until just a couple years ago.
Bushee is excited to work for the CARS Tour, having worked with Jack McNelly in the past when the old Hooters/USAR/CARS Pro Cup Tour came to Southern National.
“You can’t imagine getting that phone call,” Bushee commented. “It’s something you don’t really expect but when it happens, it’s nice to get recognized by people in the industry like Jack and Chris. That series is probably one of the biggest things going in Late Model racing. From when he converted to Late models from Pro Cup, he had a good following because of who he was. I’ve never heard anyone say anything bad to say about Jack. I’ve worked with him six times at Kenly over the years, helping him with tech during weekends. Good all around people and they’re trying to improve on what it was from last year with driver loyalty.”
With the CARS Tour, Bushee isn’t planning on going in and reinventing the wheel. He intends to keep the procedures the same while focusing on keeping the competition on a level playing field. That keeps to the basic, fundamental approach of technical inspection in a series that, in its inaugural years, had no disqualifications.
“Biggest thing I want to do is just not change a whole lot of procedures, just make sure that we’re following the rulebook,” Bushee remarked. “Just make sure we go by those and reinvent anything. We’ll stick with what they’ve got and enforce, on the engine side, everybody’s where they need to be with crate motors and built engines and making sure everyone’s where they need to be on the chassis.”
Part of the challenge in keeping level competition in the CARS Tour is that many teams come in with support from NASCAR Sprint Cup Series teams. Bushee says that the cream will always rise to the top, but that the CARS Tour doesn’t want the Cup influence to run off the little teams either. In fact, in the CARS Tour, smaller teams have been competitive with teams that have Cup influence, such as Justin Crider who recorded top-five finishes at Orange County Speedway and Hickory Motor Speedway last spring.
“I know there’s a lot of Cup influence on the Late Model side so we’ve got to police that since the average man doesn’t have the kind of access to resources that Cup teams have,” Bushee explained. “It makes a difference with the quality of racing. You don’t want to end up starting the season with 30 cars and finishing the season with 10 cars because 20 cars have been out-engineered. You have to police ingenuity. Cream always rises to the top, nothing you can do to stop that, but you can enforce the rule book and make sure everybody’s where they need to be.”
Bushee takes over for Greg Harvey, who resigned his post due to his wife’s medical issues. Harvey served as a tech official for the United Auto Racing Assiciation Southern Touring Asphalt Racing Series (UARA-STARS).
The season opener for the second season of the CARS Tour, which features the CARS Late Model Stock Tour and the CARS Super Late Model Tour, will be held at Southern National Motorsports Park on April 2nd.
