Helliwell, Bernhardt Aim High At Lee USA
Defending champs salute New England great Dion on trac
kA car owner/driver combo with a history of success is aiming high in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series New Hampshire point race in 2010.
Second generation driver Wayne Helliwell Jr, of Dover, N.H., and car owner Bruce Bernhardt of Pelham, N.H., won the 2009 Late Model division championship at Lee (N.H.) USA Speedway, a .375-mile paved oval.
They missed the NASCAR New Hampshire state championship by 17 points behind J.R. Baril, who picked up a part-time ride and state championship points at Monadnock Speedway in Winchester, N.H. He was able to collect enough points between his efforts at Lee and Monadnock to win the state title.
Helliwell and Bernhardt plan on making another run at the state title this year, and started their season in Lee’s opening night Victory Lane. They backed it up with another win and look to make it 3-for-3 Friday night. LEE USA OFFICIAL WEBSITE
They’d like to top their six-win season of 2009, but they know the competition will be strong.
The duo are long-time participants at Lee. Both were drivers until late 2007. Bernhardt needed some help with his race car, and called former driver Wayne Helliwell Sr. for some assistance.
“For some reason dad couldn’t go and asked me to take a look,” Helliwell Jr. said. “I went to see what we could do to get the car going and things just clicked. I drove the car in a year-end special and we were up front until I cut a tire.”
It was enough to inspire Bernhardt, 41, into focusing on car ownership with Helliwell as his driver.
“When Wayne drove the car it felt so good to see something we worked on so hard run so good. I enjoyed being a car owner,“ Bernhardt said.
They joined forces for the 2008 season in the Late Model Sportsman division and won its championship before winning last year’s Late Model title. As drivers, each has won previous divisional championships as drivers there.
“Everything worked out perfect,” Helliwell said of the partnership with Bernhardt. “I can’t put my finger on it. Everything has gone smoothly from the beginning. As an owner, Bruce sees that this team doesn’t want for anything.”
Helliwell has been racing at Lee nearly half his life.
“I was 15 when I started racing at Lee,” Helliwell, 33, said. “I’ve raced all over in just about every division out there, including Modifieds and Supermodifieds. “Lee USA Speedway is home, though. Our family and friends get together at the track, and we have local sponsors.
“The MacDonald family (Lee USA Speedway track operators Red and Judy MacDonald and family) are really good at what they do. As owner/operators, they run one of the nicest tracks we’ve been to, and they make you feel welcome.”
The car owners are Bruce and Amanda Bernhardt, and Bruce is also the crew chief. Team members include Chris White, Kurt Knight, Al Healey, Matt LeBlanc and Dennis Westerlin.
Sponsors include Unique Ford in Goffstown, N.H., EKeys4cars, A. Handy Company, Carbonneau Insulation, and SeaViewHotel.com.
Helliwell and his wife Jill have three daughters Brittany, 15, Elisabeth, 13, and Brooke, 4.
Helliwell is an installer for Mamouth Fire Protection. Bernhardt operates Bernhardt Automotive.
Team Salutes Dion
The race cars Bernhardt has owned and driver have almost always been orange No. 27 Fords in tribute to 1996 NASCAR K&N Pro Series champion Dave Dion. Dion, of Hudson, N.H., is as revered for his smooth style of driving as he is for being a friendly ambassador for stock car racing. His race cars were always orange No. 27 Fords, until he changed to No. 29 in the late 1970s.
Dion, now 66, is who drew Bernhardt into racing about 26 years ago.
“I was riding my bicycle around when I saw Dave’s race car in their shop. That was it. I was into racing immediately, and I have been ever since. I started helping with Dave and his brothers with their car until I started racing at Lee myself,” Bernhardt said.
“I remember it well,” said Dion of his chance encounter with the young Bernhardt. “I can relate to that well. I saw a guy (Bobby Edwards) pushing his Cutdown (forerunner of a Supermodifeds) onto its trailer in 1962. That’s how I got in to racing by helping him.
“When Bruce joined out team it was at one of our lowest times,” Dion continued. “We were not running well. I told him that we used to be a pretty good team. It didn’t matter to him. He just loved being part of the team. He was just a wide-eyed kid.”
Dion said Bernhardt was “as loyal and passionate about racing as anyone can be.”
“After he graduated from high school, he got vocational training in automobile mechanics and then got a job at a Ford dealership. He got pretty smart pretty fast,” Dion said.
Dion won the 1972 NASCAR Whelen All-American Series track championship at Norwood (Mass.) Arena before moving up to touring series racing. He was the champion of the old NASCAR North Series in 1976, He continued to dabble in that series and the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series racing through the late 1970s to the mid-1980s. Dion found his racing home in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series with sponsorship from Berlin City Ford from 1986-2006. In addition to the 1996 championship, he won 13 races and had 69 top fives and 127 top 10s in 235 starts over the 20 years. He won the series’ Sportsmanship Award in 2002 and Most Popular Driver Award in 2004. Among his most prestigious race wins are a three Victory Lane appearances in the Oxford) 250, and a win at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in 1997.
Dion competed in Late Models in 2007 and has not raced since. His long-term sponsorship from Berlin City Ford (Gorham, N.H.) ended in 2008 when, ironically, a company owned by George Gillett, co-owner of Richard Petty Motorsports, purchased the dealership.
Although he now resides in Hobe Sound, Fla., Dion has not officially declared himself retired from racing. He plans to attend the fall NASCAR K&N Pro Series and NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour events at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, which will be his first visit to a race track in nearly three years. He wants to visit with old friends.
Bernhardt says Dion was always the kind of guy who would do almost anything to help a fellow racer.
“In 2003, I was winning the Roadrunner division championship at Lee, but I didn’t want to win it because I’d have to move up a division and I couldn’t afford it,” Bernhardt said. “He got me into a Street Stock the following year.”
“I’ve always admired the Dion Brothers team because they did everything on their cars themselves,” Bernhardt said.
“Dave is the nicest guy in the world, too.”
Sources: Paul Schaefer/NASCAR PR