Higbie, a partner in Bobby's new computer-guided machine shop, says the arrangement is natural. "We can bounce ideas off each other all day in the shop, then try things at the races," he says. "If they work, then we can tell everybody. We do a lot of testing without people noticing."
Listening To Racers
Bobby strives to be different than competitors, but that hasn't always been an advantage.
"When we first started out, people said our 'cages looked too light," he says. "All these years later, after plenty of crashes and flips we haven't even remotely had any problems with the rollcages."
Bobby receives a seemingly endless stream of Monday morning phone calls from drivers who got beat Saturday night. "I try to help them out the best I can," Bobby says. "And if they bring the cars down here, I'll scale them to make sure they're not missing anything. But usually, we can straighten them out over the phone. We've pretty much got a guy at every track who is really good and we've got a good baseline setup. If you work off that, you'll be competitive.
"When cars are really screwed up, it's because they don't really understand what they need to do. These cars need maintenance. When somebody tells me it was good at the beginning of the season and not that good in the middle, it's usually maintenance. Race cars are a lot of work. It usually involves not greasing the torsion bars or something not being free."
When asked for one word that describes his car, Bobby instantly offers up "consistent," then offers an illustration. "Some guys build four-link cars, but every driver has to have a different setup," Bobby says. "Those cars have a lot of rear steer in them, and you'll have one guy who likes to throw it into the corners and one who wants to drive it in straight. Everybody needs their own setup and the problem becomes switching information from one driver to another. What works for one is no good for the next, but our cars are easy to set up and no matter which way you drive, it'll work. It's all in the radius rods and the rod angles. Our car has a bigger sweet spot. You can be off a little bit and still have a competitive car."
That brings us back to big brother Brett. He won in 2002 driving a rare high-torsion rack TEO and a variety of standard cars similar to the competition's. Even his car builder says it's not all the car.
"People hate to accept that Brett is a great driver," Bobby says. "He works constantly to get the cars right, but if he misses a little, he moves around on the track and adjusts his style until he starts going forward. He makes a good car look even better."