COMMENTARY-Steve Lewis Retires 9 Racing Team

It was announced a few weeks ago that Steve Lewis, longtime owner of the famed white "9" cars is retiring from car ownership.

This marks the end of an era in midget racing. Lewis' team has won 10 USAC Midget National Championships, and 130 feature event victories.

I have a lot of memories involving those 9 cars. One in particular is the late Stan Fox dominating the feature at the Belleville Nationals in Lewis' car, only to flip by himself, ruining his chance at a victory.

When the Lewis' cars switched to Ford power in '96, I instantly had a team to cheer for. Throughout the rest of the decade, those white cars with the Ford power dominated the sport of midget racing.

Kenny Irwin Jr. won the USAC Midget title in '96, Jason Leffler won back-to-back titles in '98 and '99. Kasey Kahne won his title in 2000, followed by Dave Darland in 2001 and 2002. JJ Yeley won in 2003 on his way to a USAC Triple Crown, and Bobby East rounded out the dynasty in 2004, winning Lewis Racing's seventh consecutive National Championship.

It was during that impressive run that I decided that I wanted to be the next Steve Lewis. His cars appearances were always immaculate. Often times, they would run multiple cars at the same event, and everything about them was identical. Every decal was in the same spot. The only thing that usually made them different was a skinny number one decal to the right or left of the nine, and the colors of the driver's helmet. I think he did that just to irritate the scoring officials. Call it arrogance, but when you team has won seven consecutive championships, you can afford to come looking a little cocky.

If I owned a multiple-car team (which is my dream) I would present my cars exactly the same way.

The one constant in racing is change, and that happened right before the 2006 season. It was announced that Lewis Racing (now called Nine Racing Inc.) would switch from Ford to Toyota. Not long after that, they went to Spike Chassis for their dirt cars, only running the venerable Beast Chassis on pavement.

After the change to Toyota, I just couldn't cheer for them. In fact, I wanted to see them lose every event they entered. They defied my wishes and won their first race using Toyota power at the 2006 Copper World Classic in Phoenix.

While the team has been strong, they’ve suffered growing pains while developing Toyota’s engine program. At times, they looked like the 9’s of old. Other times, they have been very ordinary.

Steve Lewis' last race as a car owner came just last weekend at the Turkey Night Grand Prix in California. His cars finished third, sixth and 14th. Lewis will now concentrate fully on his monthly publication of Performance Race Industry Magazine, and running the PRI Trade Show in Orlando, Florida.

Steve Lewis is one of my racing idols, and has been a huge influence on my aspirations as a car owner. I may never end up owning my race team. And if I do, I doubt I'll ever enjoy the kind of success that Lewis' cars enjoyed.

However, I figure if you’re going to emulate someone, you might as well emulate the best. Like my dad always says, "if you're going to be a bear, be a grizzly", and Steve Lewis and his famous 9 cars have always been grizzlies.