Duane Mausteller

Duane Mausteller living dream as sprint racer

By Dave Herrold For The Daily Item

Unlike his father, Randy, Duane Mausteller says he is content to race a sprinter after spending years in a midget. Duane, 31, found the thrill of victory last Saturday night when he led all the way in the 25-lap feature for 358 sprints at the Selinsgrove Speedway. It was his first win in a sprinter.
With a racing father, it seemed pretty natural that Duane would take up the sport at a young age. He started out in karts at age 5. By the time he reached 16, he got a "hand-me-down'' midget from his father. However, he wasn't old enough to compete with the American Racing Drivers Club, where his dad raced, so he got a microsprint.

When he hit 18, Duane was behind the wheel of a midget, a race car he stayed in until 2002. He actually drove a 410 sprinter in 1998, then got into 358s in 2001, where he remains.

Asked prior to his first win at Selinsgrove what kind of goals he hopes to accomplish in 2004, Duane said, "A couple feature wins, and a top five in the points.'' A feature victory is now in the books. "I really love sprint cars,'' Duane said. "Even when we were running midgets, I wanted to run sprint cars.'' In fact, he said, he would like to take his father's sprinter to a couple 410 shows.

Duane, who is employed as service manager for Jack Metzer VW/Ford, Danville, said he relaxes away from the race track by playing golf and Playstation 2.

Like his father, Duane has also been injured while racing. When he was 18, he said he got airborne at the Lernerville Speedway and "spent the rest of the night on a backboard in the nearest emergency room. "At Selinsgrove in 1998, with the 410, I got hurt pretty bad, and was out of work for a month or two. That crash made Thrills and Spills on ESPN.''

While his father likes smaller tracks, Duane takes to the bigger, high-speed ovals. "I like the speed and multiple passing grooves'' at Selinsgrove, he said. On any given night, upwards of 10-12 drivers can win a feature at Selinsgrove.

Duane, whose wife, Rebecca, is a Line Mountain school teacher, was asked who his toughest opponents are at the track. He said, "Sometimes, that's ourselves; we can be our own worst enemy ... the normal front-runners, like (T.J.) Stutts, (Blane) Heimbach, Nate Snyder. "We're fast, we just need to work on some kinks and being consistent. The new car seems to be working well. The 358s are so close that on any given night anyone could win.''

He called his becoming a racer "a natural transition.'' "Dad always had a race car around. We had a backyard kart we'd run up and down our street in front of the house. "We were working on race cars long before we could drive. Now, it's just what we do."

In victory lane, after his win last week at Selinsgrove, Duane told the fans, "The car was working great. The crew did a great job. "Going through lapped traffic it got a little tight. The car worked good all night.'' Getting more than one feature win and a top five finish in the 2004 point standings at Selinsgrove may yet be possible.