The first time I met Carl Wegner, his huge meat hook of a hand completely swallowed mine, when he grabbed it as my husband Toby introduced us. They were hard working hands that built so many engines that powered many racers to Victory Lane.

My husband Toby called me on Monday to tell me the news of Carl’s passing. I’m grateful for having met him. He was a colorful character with a great sense of humor. I was however, at a bit of a loss as to what to say to Toby.

“All of my friends are dying,” he said with so much sadness dripping from his words.

My heart hurt for him. He’s had way too many racing friends pass away in recent years. It comes with aging.
Carl was 70. The older we all get, the younger that seems.

Inevitably, when someone passes away, the memories and stories pour out of everybody. Toby had a lot of them, and so did Steve Holzhausen.

Holzhausen says the first time he actually met Carl in person was when they attended a meeting for the CWRA series. He and Toby brought their race engine with them, to get it to Carl for a freshening job.

Needless to say, after the meeting there were plenty of cocktails consumed. The boys still had to get the engine transferred to Carl. No cherry picker to lift it? No problem.

Carl walked to the truck that Steve and Toby drove to the meeting, dropped the tailgate, and picked the 500+pound engine up with his bare hands. He then proceeded to CARRY it to his pick-up truck and set it down in the bed.

As Steve and Toby were picking their jaws up off of the ground, Carl gave a laugh and climbed into the cab of his truck, sliding behind the wheel. He fired it up and mashed on the gas, spewing gravel toward the boys. They watched the race engine begin to tumble toward the back of Carl’s pickup bed (with no tailgate) in horror.

Carl noticed it too and slammed on the brakes—causing the engine to reverse direction, tumbling and rumbling back up to the front of the bed, whacking the cab. Carl gave a wave and barreled away again.

“That’s my engine,” Steve said in disbelief to Toby.

“Yep.”

Steve and Toby ran together a lot through the 80s and 90s, as they were both embarking on their racing careers. Carl played a large role in helping them along the way. When racers who showed incredible talent, but were short on funds ended up on Carl’s radar, he utilized sweat equity to make everyone a winner. Not only did Toby save money by working with Carl on engines for Steve—but he learned A LOT along the way.

Toby practically lived with Carl and his wife Jane in the 90s. The Wegners always opened their home to folks like Steve and Toby, who helped to worked on their race engines.

“You always knew where you stood with Carl,” Toby said. He wasn’t afraid to tell you how he felt about something, or call you out if he felt you needed to re-evaluate something you did or said.

Being serious wasn’t his natural state; Carl was a jokester. You learned quickly, if you stood next to him, you needed to protect the family jewels. Any unsuspecting guy standing next to Carl was sure to get a whack from the back of his huge hand to the nether region.

He had a blowgun that he would use to shoot darts at you from across the room. He was quick witted and loved to have fun, but he also knew when it was time to get down to business.

He was the epitome of hard work. Carl was working on the first Ford concept engine—a 302 block concept with a steel head. Toby was working for Rick Skalzo at the time, in Rice Lake. That concept engine was going to be used in a car that Toby was building for Dick Trickle. However, it needed to be tested under race conditions—and Holzhausen was going to pilot it for that at the track in Wisconsin Dells.

Carl made arrangements for Toby to come and pick it up later that week. Apparently, the concept engine was doing well on the dyno—really well—until it burned a hole between two cylinders.

Toby got a call from Carl, who told him about the snafu. These things happen in the early phases of concept engines.

He needed to bump the pickup date to race day… so it would be best if Toby could just bring the car to the engine shop. They’d work together to get everything squared away and put into the car.

At 7am, Toby rolled into Wegner’s shop. No one was there. The engine was still on the dyno stand—warm to the touch.
Toby started dressing it and before long, Carl and the guys showed up to help him finish the job and get it dropped into the race car for Steve to drive that afternoon at the Dells.

“That was a bad ass engine,” Toby said with smile as he reminisced. Steve got up to second and was running the leader down—before he stuck a lifter.

Trickle and Holzhausen would go on to win A LOT of races with it. Steve set a track record for the ARTGO Challenge Series at La Crosse during that time with it—breaking into the 18-seconds for the first time. Toby thought it was an 18.903.

Adam Degenhardt owns the car and engine now. It’s still competing, as an ACE engine now, but it was certainly built to last.

And the memories of Carl will last too—through the stories of shenanigans, the people he helped, and the checkered flags and championships that have been and will continue to be picked up with Wegner power under the hood.

Godspeed, Carl.

Originally published in the Midwest Racing Connection