By Bill Foley
When walking through the pits for a Super DIRtcar Series race, you expect to see all of the Platinum drivers mixed in with some locals who have decided to defend the home turf.
However, every so often, there is someone totally unexpected and different who provides a surprise entry.
Such was the case during this year’s edition of DIRTcar SummerFast at Brewerton, Fulton, and Land of Legends Raceway.
The red and white C3 was ready to go, and so was its driver, Chas Wolbert.
Who is Chas Holbert?
Talking with Dirt Track Digest, Chas answered that question by saying, “Chas Wolbert is 29 years old and runs a Big Block over in the Western Pennsylvania and Northeastern Ohio area. I’ve got a lovely wife and a lovely son, and they support me in this racing deal. We have fun with it.”
Some say that he might be on a bucket list tour this year, and Wolbert explained, “Yeah, we try to hit whatever we can. This year, I seem to kind of go places I haven’t been to before and just have fun with it. That’s what we do: we have fun with racing. We’re not doing it to make money from it, obviously. It’s more of a hobby for us, and we try to keep the sport alive and bring a little attention to our area. So, you know, we can draw some cars and draw some fans over our way.
“This is my second year in a big blog. I have been a sportsman for five or six years. When I was a little bit younger, we used to run Mod Lights over that way. So you know, I’ve followed the modified stuff all the way up through.”
The legendary Lernerville Speedway is basically his home track, but SummerFAST drew him in.
Talking about the week, Chas said, “We just figured we’d come out and run. We thought it would be great to hit three tracks. Of course you got rained out at Fulton, but Brewerton was a pretty cool place. I didn’t have any luck there, but we have been here at the Land of Legends before, and hopefully we got a little better luck.”
Continuing, he said, “Brewerton was a little bit different. It reminds me a little bit of a Western Pennsylvania track, but it’s smaller, and it was kind of a hammer down, tight going into one with a sweeping three and four. I liked it. It’s just that we didn’t qualify in time trials well enough. And when that happens, you kind of put yourself behind the eight ball. It was fun. I really would like to go there again, for sure.”
Chas indicated, “Brewerton was a new one for me. I would love to run Fulton, but we ain’t gonna catch it. There’s a couple places over our way that I’ve never raced before, and one was Marion Center. That was pretty cool to hit. And, you know, we’re kind of staying local to run the BRP Tour. So they’ve got some races. We got one more left this year.”
Talking about his racing, Chas noted, “We just love to race. I had always wanted to run a Modified and a big block, so that’s what we are doing. So far, the new tracks have been fun, and we’re going to run a couple of races at Sharon and hopefully come back here to the Land of Legends for the Haers Memorial in September.
Of his car, he said, “It’s a new car this year. It’s got dings and bruises from West Penn, but it’s a good car. It’s a Bicknell, and we run a Kevlar motor and try to run the best that we can.”
The Warren, Ohio, driver is having fun, living his dream, and experiencing tracks that he hasn’t seen before.
His fortunes in SummerFAST weren’t the best, but he improved every time he hit the race track.
