Dan Schlieper - Mr. Focus

When you first meet Dan Schlieper, you realize that this guy is driven to success in his chosen Dirt Late Model racing profession.

It's his life. There is nothing else-no wife, no kids, no house.

"This is me, and it will be my lifestyle for the foreseeable future and certainly no wife would ever put up with this," says Schlieper. "Look at this hauler and the racecars and equipment. It's all mine, and it's how I make a living.

"I don't answer to anybody but myself, and if I tear up a car on the racetrack, I know I'm the one that's going to pay for the broken parts and the one that's going to put it back together."

He even drives his own hauler, which brings to light an interesting sleep schedule. "When I get through racing at a track, I usually drive to the next place I'm going," Schlieper says. "That means I might get to bed about 4 a.m. and then sleep till about noon. Might seem a little strange, but it works for me.

"A lot of people tell me that they are jealous of my lifestyle. But I tell them to come along with me for a couple weeks having to work on the car in the heat, dust, and mud. If I tear up a car, many times I have worked all night and longer. It's the price you have to pay. Now, couldn't you just see some female putting up with this lifestyle?"

So that's Dan Schlieper, who does his thing a little different in the super-competitive dirt racing world. But he doesn't hit the small local tracks. Instead, he runs with the best there are in the World of Outlaws and Lucas Oil national traveling series, along with hitting the big-money races like the North-South 100 and the World 100, both of which he's won.

And when that all-black hauler arrives in the pits, everybody knows that Dan will have to be reckoned with on the track. An imposing figure of about six-foot-three and 225 pounds, this 37-year-old is surprisingly laid back, which is certainly not a trait he has in competition.

The "Wisconsin Wildman" explains that the toughest aspect of his racing routine is organization. "Being on the road all the time, paperwork doesn't catch up with me, but my brother Bill's wife, Josie, is my Godsend. She has taken care of my business for 11 years, and I sure couldn't do this without her. She deserves a huge thanks."

Schlieper didn't come into motorsports cold. "My dad was in drag racing and did a little circle track racing," he says. "My brothers, John and Bill, now run ProPower Racing and provide engines for many types of motorsports, including Dirt Late Models, and of course, I use their engines.

"Everybody says that my brothers are giving me their best engines, but I know that everybody gets the same stuff from them."

Dan's dad was disappointed when he didn't go into the engine business like the rest of the family. "Told me that I would be broke in three years and come crawling back," Dan says with a smile.

It's been a relatively short 14-year career, and it certainly started at the lowest of levels. "I had an old racecar and carried it around with a 10-year-old F-100 Ford pick-up and a flat-bed trailer," he recalls. "The first three years saw me racing on the weekends as I had full-time jobs of house painting and masonry work. Since I was doing piecework, I was sometimes able to get off early to race."

His career and level of success kept moving up with bigger shows and tougher competition. Racing was part-time until 1997 when he started pursuing it full-time. "I ran with the Hav-A-Tampa series that was the best traveling series in the nation at the time," he says. "I figured that I could learn a lot running against the best drivers. Did pretty good, finishing Seventh in series points and was Rookie of the Year." The next season, 1998, he claimed the $20,000-to-win Ironman 100 at Florence Speedway in Kentucky.