MARNE, Mich (WZZM) -- It's race day at Berlin Raceway in Marne. Gerry Shepard, driver of the WZZM 13 race car, meets with fans on the track before his first race. He has two races scheduled for tonight: an eight lap heat race and a 25 lap feature.
"If I give you this picture, can you do me a favor? Can you root for us when we're on the racetrack?"
His time in the heat race determines where he starts in the feature.
This season has had a rough beginning for Shepard; a crash on opening night totaled his car and set him back two weeks in the standings. Now he's catching up to the lead pack in a brand new car.
"The car that we destroyed opening night, we knew what that car liked, we knew what that car wanted -- but this new car, the things the old one liked, this one doesn't really care for," said Shepard.
For Shepard, racing is a full-time commitment, and that's fine by him.
"Take your greatest pleasure in your life and magnify it by 1,000. That's what it feels like for me to be inside this race car," he said.
Every race, dozens of racers and their crews put on a show for thousands of race fans in the stands.
"I've never been to a NASCAR race, never been to Berlin," said Joann DeGlopper of Grand Rapids. It's her first time at the track "and I am thrilled, thrilled. The roar and the thunder and the speed, it's awesome!"
"People will always say to my husband and I, 'Why do you go all over to watch the racing,' and I'd say, 'Once you're there and the sounds of the engines, and see all the people, and you get to go down to the pits and meet people, I think its just a fun night,'" said Theresa Fisher from Freeland.
At Berlin, thanks to the different divisions, there's about three hours of near non-stop racing every race night. Shepard's heat race is the third of the night: eight laps to get a feel for your car and the track.
"In the eight-lap race, you didn't really have any time to make any moves or set anybody up, but in the 25-lap race, you get a lot more time to work on people, set up the pass," Shepard said.
The heat race went as planned: the car was a little pushy, loose in the corners.
"We are going to open up the stagger and with the track cooling off that should give it a little more grip too," Shepard said of his adjustments. The stagger is the difference in tire circumference from the front to the rear. Additionally, a small change in air pressure can make or break a race car. "If you're an eighth of an inch off, your car's gonna be junk. It will not handle," Shepard said.
Adjustments were made, and then it was time for the feature race: 25 laps with 18 race cars on the track and thousands of fans in the stands.
"There's a lot going on in your mind while you're racing; it's not just a matter of going out there and turning left. You hear the noise, your car, the other cars, you feel someone bump you -- just a wealth of information that goes through your mind," said Shepard.
He begins in the fourth spot and holds his spot for the beginning of the race. But as the race heats up, the adjustments to the stagger show to have been the wrong ones; the car isn't handling like it should and he slips back, finishing the feature race in seventh.
"There's times when you think, 'Do we change anything, do we not,' but you have to do something to keep up with the track.
Sometimes you're gonna be on it, and some nights you're gonna miss it, like tonight," Shepard explained.
This night was a missed opportunity. Shepard's team felt they finally had the car where it needed to be, but the track conditions surprised them. That means another week, another round of adjustments, and another shot at moving up the season standings after this disappointment.
"The best I could go is maybe a C," he said, grading himself. "We're a lot better than we were tonight."
