When Todd Hestor was asked to list his future plans for his high school yearbook he kept it simple: 1. Get a good job. 2. Be a successful sprint car driver in Central Pennsylvania. A fellow by the name of Dave Middleswarth is helping Hestor achieve those goals. Hestor does electrical maintenance for the Middleswarth Potato Chip company during the week and drives one of Middleswarth's sprint cars on weekends.
Hestor's Middleburg address places him just a few miles from the late Jan Opperman's residence, and even closer to the small shop behind Ralph Heintzelman's home where Opp's most famous ride, the Bogar 99, was housed.
Growing up just minutes from Selinsgrove Speedway, it wasn't surprising that Hestor wanted to be a racer. He started in karts at age 11, and won more than 125 features before moving on to micro sprints in '94. His father-in-law, Gary Kratzer, owned a sprint car and gave Todd a chance to race the type of car that had been his childhood goal.
Hestor made the most of his opportunity and was named Rookie of the Year at Selinsgrove in 1995. While Hestor was gaining experience in the Kratzer car, Middleswarth was watching. At the time his driver was Barry Camp, who was coming to the end of a long and successful career.
In late '98 Middleswarth offered to field a second car for Hestor. When Camp retired, Middleswarth hired Keith Kauffman, a local legend. Although the cars are kept in the same shop, Kauffman and Hestor are not exactly teammates. Kauffman has his inventory and Hestor has his own. Kauffman's schedule is far more aggressive since he races for a living. Hestor is a weekend racer who, in 2001, competed regularly at Williams Grove and Port Royal with a few special shows thrown in.
While Hestor may not have quite as much as Kauffman, what he has is quality equipment.
"I can never say, 'We should've had a better motor or we should've had a better car,'" Hestor states.
He's been showing steady improvement as a driver. In '99, his first full year with Middleswarth, Hestor recorded 21 Top-10 and eleven Top-5 finishes. In 2000 he won features at Williams Grove and Selinsgrove, recorded 32 Top-10 finishes and had 14 Top 5s.
Todd Hestor is a weekend racer in every sense of the term. He earns his living in the Middleswarth Potato Chip plant, not in the Middleswarth sprint car. He doesn't exactly get paid for driving. At the end of the 2000 season Middleswarth gave him a small percentage of the car's winnings, which Hestor shared with his crew. But he's not complaining. He's just happy to have a competitive ride on the tough Central Pennsylvania sprint car circuit.
Name: Todd HestorDob: October 29, 1969Hometown: Middleburg, PASeries: Williams Grove And Port RoyalSponsor: Middleswarth Potato Chips
Sean Stafford: Canadian SavvySean Stafford is mature and articulate beyond his years. At 16, Stafford is racing very competitively with the Auto Value Super Sprints, the 410ci winged pavement series. His unlikely home country, Ontario, Canada, makes this accomplishment even more impressive, since sprints don't enjoy the same interest up north as they do in the States.
This high school junior started his racing career at age seven. Sean credits his introduction into the sport to "an uncle of mine who lived pretty close and owned a dirt kart track." That was all that was needed for Sean, who quickly took to kart racing for the next half-dozen years.
"It was strictly a local deal and was a lot of fun," he says of his karting days. "We just raced for trophies, and I guess that I had about three-dozen wins. It really got me hyped up on racing, and I knew that I wanted to continue doing it."
In 1999, at age 13, Sean turned to the 125cc motorcycle engine-powered micro-sprints, racing in New York State.