West Liberty Raceway
Racer's homecoming follows health crisis
By Todd Turner
DirtonDirt managing editor
Dan Breuer (zskphotography.com)
For most Dirt Late Model racers, the site of their worst wreck isn’t typically a track they enjoy revisiting. But Dan Breuer is eager for Wednesday’s return to half-mile West Liberty (Iowa) Raceway, where 40 years ago he crashed into a gate opening that sent him seeking medical attention for a broken ankle and back pain.
“I think the place owes me one,” the 57-year-old Breuer said. “So maybe my luck will turn around Wednesday night.”
No matter how the Karl Chevrolet Premier Late Model Tour event at the Muscatine County Fair turns out, Breuer will assuredly enjoy himself. For the Mooresville, N.C., racer, it’s part of a nostalgic homecoming to compete in his native Iowa for the first time since the early 1990s. And it’s part of a celebration of beating colon cancer, which curtailed his racing last season and left him realizing that “I am a lucky person” for an early detection and successful treatment.
Family and friends from years gone by will be greeting Breuer during his racing vacation to four tracks this week that was prompted by a trip to Iowa last year that reconnected him with his original racing community.
"This year, I kind of wanted to see if maybe I'd come back and run a few of the tracks I've ran before, maybe some places I hadn't been. I'm fortunate enough that, at my age, I'm still able to get ahead of the cancer like that,” Breuer said in a Monday phone interview. "I know how lucky I am compared to others. So I thought, you know, if I'm gonna come back and do it, I need to do it now rather than later because you put things off too long and you just never get to them.”
Breuer finished 10th Sunday on the Premier circuit at Benton County Speedway in Vinton, Iowa. After Wednesday’s race at West Liberty, he plans to run Saturday and Sunday at Independence Motor Speedway and Mason City Motor Speedway.
Breuer knows he’s fortunate to be racing at all after receiving a cancer diagnosis last year. He’d actually gone to the doctor seeking treatment for his back that “was giving me an issue when I was climbing in the race car,” Breuer said, recounting his visit to the physician.
“I said, ‘I want to see what’s wrong with my back.’ While I was getting checked over, the doctor had said, ‘You know, at your age, you should have had a colonoscopy.’ And I hadn’t. And I said, ‘Well, I really don't, think I need that. That's not my problem.’ ”
The doctor eventually talked him into taking a Cologuard test, a less invasive cancer screening.
"I did that, it came back positive, went with the colonoscopy, found the cancer, and cut it out, and I was fortunate enough that they were able to cut it out, take a little bit of my intestine and give me some chemo for five or so months, and I'm cured. I'm good,” Breuer said. “If it hadn't been for the back pain getting in the race car, I would never have got checked out.”
Skipping races in the Carolinas last season during his chemotherapy, which lasted through August, was a small price to pay for his renewed health that he credits to the diligent team at Novant Health Cancer Institute.
"I tried to race and I did run some races while I was on the chemo, but honestly, there are times when we were loading the car, and I would get too sick (and) stay home,” Breuer said. “So it definitely limited our season at the beginning of the year, but, again, a little bit of discomfort, and I'm cured. I know that other people aren't as fortunate, and I hope people get checked out.
“The chemo was the toughest part. I got treated right there in Lake Norman. A shoutout to the caretakers and the people there because, you know, they worked with me so well to help me stay as healthy as I could through the chemo, very supportive, my family, very supportive friends, of the racing community. … I never can say enough that I probably don't deserve the luck that I get.”
Born in Wapello, Iowa, Breuer followed his father Bill’s tire tracks into the Late Model division as a teenager, winning his first race at Cedar County Raceway in Tipton, Iowa, in 1986 amid a career competing in IMCA-, NASCAR- and UMP-sanctioned competition in the Hawkeye State. When his parents moved to North Carolina, the 21-year-old Breuer followed them south.
“Truthfully, my budget for racing at my age, I was working a third-shift job, trying to race and go take college classes, and I probably needed to get some more help and support,” he said, “so I moved closer to my parents so that I could keep racing and still function.”
Initially living in Petersburg, Va., he and his father alternated driving their Late Model until Breuer joined them in the Charlotte area in 1993. Soon enough he was enmeshed in competition throughout the Carolinas, continuing a lengthy racing career that includes the $20,000 NeSmith Crate Late Model championship, a Carolina Clash Super Late Model Series victory, Cagle Automotive Blue Ridge Outlaw Late Model victories and an array of other success. He became a Carolinian through and through.
"I consider myself almost Southern — as Southern as you could be without being born there,” he said.
His Iowa-to-North Carolina trek meant he's among few Dirt Late Model racers having the opportunity to race against the best drivers in both states over multiple generations.
"I got to race with Freddy Smith and (Mike) Duvall and all the guys down in the South,” Breuer said. “You know, it's cool because like when I was growing up (in Iowa) I raced against Roger Dolan and Tom Hearst and all those guys from the Midwest that were so good back in the day, and then I moved South and got to race with” more regional and national standouts.
Breuer has driven for team owner Mike Gatton the past seven seasons, but he’s had other stints for successful teams including Larry Bryant’s LB Racing and Steve Cooke’s Mount Airy, N.C.-based AES Racing team which fielded cars for Jonathan Davenport and Dennis “Rambo” Franklin, among others.
"I'm not a great racer or big name or anything,” Breuer said, “but I've just been lucky enough to be with really good people that have allowed me to keep doing it, even maybe when we weren't running quite so good.”
Breuer, who works at the Trackhouse Motorplex karting facility in Mooresville, is now getting a second, albeit brief, stint to race with Iowa drivers still active from his days as a teenager, including Darrel DeFrance, Jeff Aikey and Gary Webb.
“Guys like Gary Webb and DeFrance, getting to race with those guys and then now getting to race with them again, I'm a very fortunate person,” Breuer said. “It’s just fun and flattering to get to come race back with these guys again.”
He’s grateful for Gatton's support for the trip he’s taken with his 24-year-old daughter Ashlyn Breuer, her boyfriend Zack Kloosterman (a contributing DirtonDirt photographer) and fellow racer Todd Eury. Breuer is being cheered on from afar by wife Kim and daughter Kylie, who couldn’t make the trip because of her freshman orientation for the University of North Carolina.
Breuer was greeted in Iowa by longtime racing friends Gary Dickey, a crew member from his early Iowa racing days, and one of his best friends Ted Pallister, whose family previously owned 34 Raceway in West Burlington, Iowa, and once provided the shop where Breuer kept his race car.
“We go to the racetrack with the attitude, you know, we're gonna have a good time. We're going to try to be competitive. And I can't thank them guys enough because without (Gatton’s) support I could never come do this, let alone do it back at the shop, but to come on a trip to Iowa,” Breuer said. “I appreciate all the support I've always had and the support that I continue to get because, at 57 years old, I'm lucky my car owner — I've told him many times: Why don't you put somebody else in the car? — and he doesn't do that, so I'm glad he doesn't wise up and leaves the old man in here trying to get it done.”
Breuer also never forgets that, except for an unexpected cancer screening, his racing career might’ve ended sooner than later. It’s made him an advocate for anyone avoiding the relative unpleasantness of an occasional colonoscopy, which the American Cancer Society now recommends for anyone 45 and over.
“I try to tell people: Don't be like me. I'm just lucky that I was able to get it caught. It had nothing to do with my back pain at the end of the day,” Breuer said. “I just kept putting it off and saying, ‘I don't need to worry about that. I'm in good shape’ I’m very thankful. I know I’m a lucky person.”
And he’s lucky to get another chance to race in his native state.
“It’s very humbling to be able to come back and see people that I haven't seen in a long, long time,” he said. “Hopefully I can run OK Wednesday night. But at the end of the day, where we finish doesn't mean as much to me as as everybody having a good time and everything being good.”
