The Understated Dominance of Jeff Rine Comes To Light In Stellar Season

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Points racing is becoming a lost art form in a way. While an overwhelming number of drivers seem to be opting to chase regional specials on the weekends, lured by more money, more media attention and all the things that can come with success on a regional stage, it is refreshing to find competitive and talented racers calling certain tracks home on a weekly basis. Many in the sport assume there are reasons those drivers that elect to travel less do so. Perhaps because their equipment isn't quite up to a competitive enough standard, financial reasons, or a lack of talent or experience. And in between the weekly home track drivers and regional heroes there is a seam containing names that escape recognition for a track record of dominating the competition.

Jeff Rine is a driver that has not only put together a dominant weekly career, but in 2017 had his talent, passion and enthusiasm validated with a win on a national stage.  It is a career that has seen him rise to the top of the weekly tracks close to his home, punctuated by an incredible string of championships that might not be rivaled anywhere else in the country during the same time period, against full fields of cars that contain a level of talent not commonly found in weekly programs elsewhere.

What's also astonishing in all that has become of his driver career, is the fact that just ten years ago, it was a career Rine thought he might be through with by the time he was 40.

"About ten years ago, I said I was going to be done racing when I was 40 because I don't want to be one of those guys that keep racing just to do it and not win races," Rine said in a recent interview. "But I'm 40, I'm still having fun, and we're still winning races so it'll be couple more years yet."

It's a good thing Rine has continued racing, not because it's one more driver who still continues the weekly grind, but because it gives him a chance to add to his legacy, and perhaps, a chance to do some things he's not had a chance to do yet. For Rine, racing found it's way into his blood at a young age and at a legendary facility where his name would become part of the record books for years to come.

WRT Speedwerx

"My dad worked with a couple of the Campbell brothers including Steve who still races, and they were bugging my dad to come to the races. I was six years old and my dad took me to my first race with them at Selinsgrove Speedway back in '84 I believe, and they had a four or five division show that night with Sprints, Late Models, Semi-Lates, Street Stocks, and I was just hooked ever since."

Central Pennsylvania has long been considered fertile ground for prospective Sprint Car drivers over the years, but it's tracks have also launched the careers of a good deal of prominent Super Late Model drivers as well. Rine initially started down a fenderless path early in his career.

"I was eight years old when we got a Go Kart. I got it for Christmas and it was used up pretty hard but it was a good learning Go Kart and Bobby Croop that raced Late Models had a track out back of his place and they would race on Sunday's. We would race there, Sunbury Go Kart Track and Greenwood Valley Action Track when I first got started, and then at one point we were racing all over the North East. Then we got into 270cc Micro Sprints in 1993 just as a step in between Karts and Late Models just to get used to the faster speeds and closer competition."

It didn't take the Danville, PA native long to jump into Super Late Model competition, and he even forewent the normal introductory step of racing in lower divisions just to get used to the weight and horsepower differences. He hit the ground running and never really stopped.

"As far as the difference between them goes, they all go in a circle and you turn left and stand on it" Rine said with a chuckle. "I think one thing that helped me a lot was I got right into the Super Late Model. I didn't run a Street Stock or a Hobby Stock, so I really didn't have any bad habits. I see some guys moving up from a 358 which you pretty much have to run wide open the whole time and then they get into a Super Late Model and they're just spinning the tires because they have so much more engine so I think how we did it made it a bit easier. The Late Model came along in 1995 and we ran in the top five a few times that year, and I won my first race and three more in 1996 and my first track championship came along in 1998."

WRT Speedwerx

Rine is quick to point out how much support he's had over the year, which includes friends of his family and his family itself.

"The Campbell family, Steve and Tim were the biggest influences on me, I went to those guys a lot, they helped me a ton getting started. My dad's been very supportive also, he's done a lot for me. There at one time we took a loan out to buy a Super Late Model engine, it was what we had to do since we didn't have any big time sponsors. In 2002 when Jeff Kurtz came along and he owns my stuff now, we've been together a long time."

However, one family member didn't always enjoy the notion of Jeff driving a race car week in and week out.

"My mom hates the races." Rine said in a laughing manner. "She goes about two or three times a year and she's a nervous wreck, she hates it but she's very supportive. She likes the racing sometimes but hates the part where I could get hurt. I try to tell her that I'm safer in that race car than I am driving down the road.  And I met my wife Shelley at the races. So it's what we do, we go to the races, it's about all we think about."

Rine became a weekly fixture at Selinsgrove Speedway where he won an astounding 10 consecutive track championships at one point, racing against legendary drivers, a rich mix of talent that includes Knaub's, Frye's, Yoder's, Friese's, Cosner's and many more. Jeff has produced 15 track championships including two more at Selinsgrove and three at Bedford Speedway. To finish in the top five is quite an accomplishment at those tracks and against that level of competition. To rule that level 15 times before the age of 40 is nearly unheard of. It is a level of dominance that is uncommon and that makes Rine and uncommon weekly driver. One that has not always had the opportunities to travel as much as he would like to, but one that is more deserving of recognition.

"Selinsgrove is where I grew up racing and I've got a ton of laps around it. It's big and fast and it's got those sweeping corners and I race at Port Royal which is big and fast as is Bedford. I grew up on those types of tracks. We have a setup that works good at all three of those places and I like racing at all three."

Behind every successful driver, is a successful team and Rine currently has a team that has come together over the years and has been kept tight. It's all about consistency with him, consistency with crew and car means consistent results, and with his success it's hard to change a work philosophy that bears fruit at the level Rine has been at.

"My dad takes care of the maintenance, going over all the nuts and bolts and suspension and he keeps track of the laps on the engine and that kind of stuff. I do all the setups, shocks and springs and I have another guy that works with me on tires.  We usually pick two nights a week to work on the car and we have about four guys show up and that's just enough.  If you get too many around you get missing stuff, or a nut or bolt isn't tightened so we try to keep it to just the four of us and that way nothing gets overlooked and everybody's been doing it for so long, it's just what we do anymore."

Rine currently works building wings for Sprint Cars and has been doing so for quite some time and has even brought his career around full circle, even if just for a few races as he managed to jump back into a Micro Sprint for the first time since his youth in 2017.

"I did build myself a 600cc Micro Sprint last year and raced that a handful of times just to forget about the Late Model and to go have fun.  I put so much pressure on myself in the Late Model and sometimes it's fun but there's just so much pressure there. In the 600 Micro I can just go have fun. It doesn't matter if I win, of course I want to win but it really doesn't matter where I finish. I raced it at Greenwood Valley Action Track and one night we ran fourth and that was the best I did with it."

But the highlight of Jeff Rine's 2017 came on September, 3 when he got to fulfill a dream that many a weekly racer has encountered. A victory in a national touring series at their home track. Rine wasn't certain of how the night would go early on, but found himself beside a former Selinsgrove alum in Rick Eckert on the front row of the $10,000 to win National Late Model Open. After getting out to an early lead, Rine was held off a stiff challenge from Brandon Sheppard, got some luck via a flat tire and then seemingly drove away from the remainder of the field in the second half of the fifty lap main event to collect the victory.

"Going into that night it rained all afternoon, and I was texting the Steve Inch, the promoter about what I should do and he said I needed to make a business decision so we ended up racing and it was muddy and I didn't know what to expect. We time trialed pretty good and ran second in our heat race, and coming to the checkered in that race I got a right rear flat and I was like 'man, this is just too good to be true. why didn't it happen a lap before' Then I re-drew a two and Rick Eckert started on the pole and he's got a pretty stout engine, and I thought if I could beat him in to turn one, that's where the race was going to be won. So I ended up beating him into turn one and my dad was giving me signals and I knew Sheppard was behind me and my dad had just signaled he was right on me, but I was just kind of on cruise control. The yellow came out the next lap and Sheppard got a flat a lap or so later. I think we would have been alright because I really wasn't pushing the car. But winning that race mean everything. I'd won a lot of those Memorial races at Selinsgrove that paid $10,000 to win, I think we won three of them, but the Outlaw win was just awesome."

It was a victory that not only highlighted a season, but a career. And it stood as a moment where Rine's talent was on display and telling of skill beyond a simple weekly racer that can't challenge the top level of the sport. Rine could and did on that night, and could again be in the mix for a victory at his choosing when such competition is close by.

Rine plans on following up his 2017 with a similar approach in the coming season, 

"I'm going to drive Bob and Leona Elben's #92 on Friday nights at Bedford, it'll be my 12th year in that car. And on Saturday's we're just going to do like we did in 2017 racing back and forth. If Port Royal has a bigger paying show we're going to race there and if Selinsgrove has the bigger paying show we'll be there."

With all he has achieved thus far, there are still some things he would like to get the opportunity to do before all is said and done. There is still a checklist in play, and Rine has every intention of completing it.

"I want to win a race at Hagerstown Speedway before I'm done, so I have to get there. I can't race it weekly, my sponsor is a sponsor at Selinsgrove, but I'd like to get to Hagerstown two or three times this summer. Someday I'd like to get to Eldora and race and I'd also like to get to Knoxville because of the history of both of those places."

Jeff Rine figured he would have called it a day by now 10 years ago, but he didn't and has been rewarded for his persistence, and he has no signs of hanging it up just yet. But what keeps him coming back to the track, has perhaps helped make that decision a little easier. It's a racing life for Rine, and no matter how exhausting it is, it is in his DNA and it motivates him to achieve the level of success he has enjoyed.

"It's the competition, the people at the track, it's what we look forward to as a family."

Here's hoping his reasons for coming to the track and competing every week, keep him winning and fulfilling the rest of his checklist, and perhaps getting to a few places where fans who have never seen him race. They'll be in for a treat when they get to feast their eyes on what a special driver he is, and perhaps he will write another great chapter in his history in front of them where we will be remembered not only as a weekly racer, but one that can compete with the best of them.