If you’re like me, you probably went into a bit of a depression a few years ago, when Steve Holzhausen announced he would be retiring from racing. I haven’t fully pulled out of the funk that announcement had on me.

Not only is he a phenomenal race car driver, but he’s easily one of the funniest and nicest guys you’ll ever talk to, particularly while enjoying a beer together. While I miss seeing him deftly pick his way through the field to grab the checkers, the good news is that you can still have a post-race beer with him in the pits, as he’s generally found helping his son, Skylar, at races now.

I remember hearing about the throttle sticking in his race car at the Dells several years ago. It was horrifying news, and I probably abused my friendship by calling his cell phone to check on him, but I didn’t care. My sources said it was one of the nastiest hits they had ever seen. It was ugly. I had knots in my stomach.

Steve was kind enough to return my call; chatting quite calmly I might add, from the backseat of a vehicle that his wife was driving, as they were motoring home from the hospital. He was reassuring me that things were going to be fine, but the reality was, they weren’t. His left side took a brutal beating, and his foot was crushed. It actually required three different surgeries in an attempt to fix it correctly.

It’s still not 100%.

Funny how life experiences like that force one to seriously look at the big picture. While Holzhausen’s foot is not as good as it was; it is as good as it’s going to get, and he can still walk on it. The injury certainly contributed to his decision to pull the pin on his career behind the wheel. He has his health, for the most part, and there is still plenty of fishing to do. Plus, he has a wife who deserves more attention than she has probably received over the past 30-plus years, as he chased his racing dreams.

I stopped out to visit him at his race shop recently. As expected, it was a night full of plenty of great stories and lots of laughs. And as is usually the case, I end up learning something more about my husband, Toby, who used to work on Steve’s pit crew for many years. I had no idea that Toby worked 8 days a week on race cars! I’m kidding. He still does.

Everybody knows if you’re going to be fast and successful, you need to work on your stuff. Some people, like Holzhausen get an early start on that lesson. His father, Bud, was a racer in his own right, and owned a Ford dealership in Bangor; Coulee Ford. Steve was hands on in the body shop since he was about 10 or 11-years-old.

He reminisced about how he would see guys like Dave Marcus, Everett Foxx, and Fred Beckler at his dad’s shop. He would help sort nuts and bolts, just to hang out around the racers. It was only a matter of time before the competitive spirit was fully infused in his blood.

I was curious what race Holzhausen was most proud of in his storied career. Without much hesitation, he said the 1994 ASA race at Anderson Speedway. He qualified 2nd fastest, behind Mike Eddy, pulled to the lead on the first lap, and never gave the position up for 400 circuits.

It’s completely understandable why that one would be the race he is most proud of in his career. He beat the likes of Eddy, Scott Hansen, Butch Miller, and Bob Senneker just to name just a few. Twenty-six cars started that race, and Holzhausen lapped all but seven of them. To say the car was on rails is an understatement.

It wasn’t always sunshine and roses for Holzhausen’s team. A lot of work went into developing a reputation as a threat to win each race he entered. There was a lot to learn. Fortunately, there were plenty of successful drivers during those early years to try to glean advice from; like Dick Trickle, Tom Reffner, Jimmy Back, Marv Marvzofka, and Larry Detjens.

Not that any of them were forthcoming with everything Holzhausen needed to know. Don’t get me wrong, they would help; IF he asked the right questions. Some things never change. It’s pretty much the same case yet today with racers.

Holzhausen said he did the best thing any racer can do to get better—raced… A LOT. Back when he was cutting his teeth in racing, it wasn’t unusual for guys to run five nights a week at various tracks.

One of those weekly stops was at the track in Wisconsin Dells. It’s where he picked up his first ever superlate model feature, his first ARTGO win, and it’s oddly enough, the place he suffered that devastating accident, which turned out to be the lynch pin to end his driving career. It’s almost a testament to Holzhausen’s character; he holds onto the good and pushes aside the bad, because to this day, if you ask him, he’ll tell you that Dells Raceway Park is still his favorite track.

That first career superlate win happened in a car he purchased from Steve Burgess that was built by Dick Trickle.
Like most racers, regardless of the era, Holzhausen’s race team was on a tight budget. He and Toby once used tractor weights, mounted on the left side door bars, because they didn’t have any lead for their car.

Another time, during a race at the Dells, he bought two new tires for the right side of his machine, and then swung a deal for two old practice tires from Jim Sauter to put on the left. That night, he raced against the likes of Trickle, Sauter, Mark Martin, Dave Watson, and Al Schill, lapping all but six cars; picking up that first ARTGO career win.

Savvy racers learn to make do with less; even when it comes to a pit crew. In the early days, Holzhausen was running with a skeleton pit crew.

Like an event in 1989, when his team consisted of his very pregnant wife, Sherie, Toby Nuttleman, and one of Toby’s younger brothers, Peter. They dug out one of the oldest, gnarliest-looking tires to put on the right rear, to prevent the track at Hawkeye Downs from chewing it up. They still weren’t happy with the way the car was handling, so they decided to put different spindles on the car. It was then that Dick Trickle walked past their pit.

“I’ve changed a lot at a track before, but never two spindles,” Trickle said.

As it turned out, that change and the gangrene-like tire made a huge difference, and Holzhausen would go on to win the first ARTGO show on the new asphalt which paved the once-dirt track at Hawkeye Downs.

Five years later, he would be piloting a Pontiac at that same track. Pontiac had a dandy sponsorship program in place that awarded the winning driver a $5,000 bonus, if their race car was a Pontiac. If the winner didn’t drive a Pontiac, that $5,000 rolled over to the next race, and the pot grew.

It was the first ASA event at Hawkeye Downs in 1994, and Holzhausen pulled off the win, and picked up a $20,000 bonus for running a Pontiac.

Ah, the good old days of racing.

While Holzhausen assures me that he won’t be getting back behind the wheel, he will always keep his fingers in racing. Whether he’s helping his son, Skylar, or any of Jimmy Back’s boys, or grandsons; Holzhausen says he just wants to work on race cars. Having a hand in racing in some way, shape, or form other than driving seems to be enough for him.

These days, Holzhausen mostly pilots a fishing boat. If your friends with him on Facebook (or Spacebook, as he calls it), you’ve likely seen a few photos of him and his wife, Sherie holding up some dandy catches.

I pointed out that it would seem that Sherie catches the bigger fish. I saw a little devil dancing in his eyes, as he quickly pointed out that he always hands her the pole with the biggest fish on the line.

It’s good to know the competitive spirit is still flickering inside of him.

Originally published in the Midwest Racing Connection