Sept. 11 events inspire ex-firefighter to race

By ROB RYSER
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: August 12, 2002)

YORKTOWN — Bob Wanner doesn't see the irony that for 28 years with Engine 88 in the Bronx, he raced against the clock in a fireproof suit and now, in his retirement, he does the same thing in a 500 Lakester race car.

But each time he gets on the track, the 57-year-old Yorktown man wants the world to know that he's racing for the 343 New York City firefighters who died saving lives in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.

Wanner races with 343 on his car, a number he made special arrangements to get from another driver eight months ago, as a tribute to the firefighters.

The special number is also a way to keep links alive with his old company in the Bronx, where his son, Matthew, was assigned to the same firehouse the day after Wanner retired in 1997.

At the end of September, Wanner will try to break the national speed record for his class at an Air Force base runway in Maxton, N.C.

"We all think it's really cool for him to do this," said Carl Punzone, a firefighter with Ladder 38, which shares the house with Engine 88 in the Bronx. "Bob has always been a loose cannon, so for him to do this doesn't surprise us."

In a sport where racers have broken the sound barrier by hitting 700 mph, the record that Wanner will try to top with a souped-up snowmobile engine doesn't sound like much — 149.9 mph set in 1994 by Ken Hardman at Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats.

Wanner's 130-horsepower 500 Lakester is in the slowest class of race cars, and one of the most obscure.

Wanner compares the sensation of accelerating the Lakester to steering a cockroach on drugs.

"You can't believe how loud this thing is, and the concrete track has expansion joints on it that keep you busy," Wanner says. "I was doing pretty well down there the last time, but maybe that's because I was in the air half the time."

The last time Wanner was in Maxton, in March, he set a track record of 121 mph. It was only his second trip.

On his first trip, he managed only 49 mph, but was encouraged to find so many people at the track in retirement like himself, with a love of engines, racing and breaking records.

"It's a bunch of guys with garages, really," Wanner says of the racing scene, governed by the East Coast Timing Association. "It's retired gear heads — firemen, cops, helicopter mechanics — and the one thread that runs through it is that we are all kind of nuts."

Wanner may be in a class of his own, said David Wallens, the managing editor of Grassroots Motor Sports, which covered Wanner's Maxton record run.

Wanner's car originally had a smaller 73-horsepower Formula 440 engine that he used for auto-cross racing with the Westchester Sports Car Club. For a time, he drove at club rallies in mall parking lots, where drivers compete against the clock to navigate pylon courses.

Then Wanner's teenage love of drag racing was stirred when he discovered land speed racing on the Internet. Two local mechanics helped him convert his engine for more horsepower.

"The car he started out with was in no way designed for the kind of racing he's doing now," Wallens said. "Not many people have done what he did. It shows you can race just about anything and have fun."

Wanner's daughter, Valarie, said she is proud her father took it on himself to get number 343, which had been registered to an Idaho man in his 70s named Howard Bradley, whose passion was drag racing Harley Davidson motorcycles.

"He called me and said that I could have it," Wanner said. "After 9/11, I wanted to honor the brothers. I went down there to video the scene. I really haven't gotten over it, to tell you the truth."

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