Drew Elliott brought his family to Pacemakers from their home in Centerburg to put his modified ’27 roadster on Mount Vernon’s historic eighth-of-a-mile track, get a crack at Saturday’s $1,000 first-place money and just get out of the house.
The roadster, Elliott’s pride and joy, has been a work in progress. He has been itching to get it up to the starting line for months, and also to just show it off.
The beautiful shade of orange enamel that Elliott chose to paint the car is matched by the golf cart that he and his family use to get around in the pits, but the changes are not just skin deep. His roadster is powered by a 383-cubic inch, small block Chevy engine.
“I basically rebuilt it from the ground up,” Elliott said. “I redid the motor, transmission, suspension and wiring.”
Elliott hits many of the tracks in Ohio a few times a year, but Pacemakers is his home.
“I live down in Centerburg, so I like getting here in 10 minutes,” Elliott said. “It’s hard to pass up something that’s that close.”
The 32-year-old Elliott, who works as a maintenance tech at Ariel Corporation, already has 25 years of racing at Pacemakers to look back on.
“I started out here when I was seven years old,” Elliott said. “I began out in junior dragsters and have worked my way up.”
Even Elliott’s roadster seemed happy to finally be unleashed, after waiting for the coronavirus restrictions to be eased.
“Everything worked really well,” Elliott said. “The car has been ready for three months, probably. It’s been just sitting there, waiting and waiting to get out. It’s been frustrating, because you could go to (a large store) with 500 people, but you couldn’t come here with so many acres. They couldn’t have more than 10 people.”
Elliott’s six-year-old daughter, Peyton, thinks her dad’s racing is ‘awesome.’ She will probably be racing junior dragsters soon.
“When I get old enough,” she said. “I can win.”
Elliott’s wife Jessica, works for the U.S. Postal Service. She also uses the word, “awesome,” to describe her husband’s racing. She has been to Pacemakers since she was a baby. She and her husband lived, “down the road,” from each other as children.
“It’s so good to finally be out here,” she said. “It was working that got me through the last couple of months. I wasn’t allowed to just stay home. I’m happy to be out of the house with something to do, other than work.”
Win or lose, getting back to the life they enjoy is a victory for the Elliotts.
“It feels great,” Elliott said. “Especially when you are trying to get a six-year-old to understand that we can’t go anywhere, we can’t be close to anybody. It’s been rough.”
Note: In the finals of Saturday afternoon’s racing at Pacemakers, Shelby’s Ben Adkins drove to victory in his Chevrolet Camaro to win the thousand dollar prize. He defeated Herman Lester, Jr. of Mansfield in the finals.
