| Mike Cope Set for a good 2003 in ASA |  Mike Cope started of the 2002 season with the intent to compete full time on the ASA Racing Series. After two events, however, those plans changed and he did not compete in any more events last season. Coming into 2003, Cope has a fresh approach to the series and is ready to compete in the series that is known to build champions.
He is also confident his team can compete in the series, as most of the team members have previously been exposed to ASA Racing and carry that experience to the table.
“We have the same people that we used when we went racing otherwise and most of them were with us in ASA,” Cope said.
“As for a crew chief, I’m just going to do the interim deal until I can find someone who fits our program, but I’m pretty hands-on and I do all the stuff in the shop as far as the fabricating. I have two good guys in the shop, one’s an engineer and to me an engineer is more important than a real, true crew chief, because of all the electrical stuff.
A lot of guys might need a crew chief, because they can’t do the other side of the business, but an engineer can do all the shocks and that frees me up to do what I need to do.
The other guy is our truck driver and general mechanic and he works here with me. We have the two guys in the shop and that works out real well for us.
“If I could find someone who could do the crew chief job on a weekend basis, I’d take a look at it, but we might just try to bring some different guys in on weekends in that role and see what shakes out. Nobody has to learn the ropes of ASA when we get there, they’ve already all been there.”
The plan for Cope is to continue with the sponsorship from Florida Auto Auction of Orlando, but says the team is going to be sporting a new look.
“The auction is really a primary sponsor, but they’re willing to take a secondary position. Our colors have changed, if it’s the auction car, it will be red and white instead of blue and white, just because I am trying to change my luck,” Cope said. “I had Austin Quality Foods with a blue car and I had a blue Royal Crown Cola Dodge, a blue auction car after the Austin people went a different direction … blue cars have been nothing but bad luck, so we’re going to go a different direction to some red and see what happens. We have painted everything. We have it all standing tall, looking right. That is the one thing I really missed about ASA. Racing other places, it’s not a lack of professionalism on the series part, but on the competitors’ part. There are a lot of really well prepared, professional race teams in ASA and I missed that. We have our stuff back where it needs to be and we’ll be proud to roll it off the truck when we get to Lakeland.”
As for his goals in 2003, they are to pick up where he left off and continue to improve. He believes a victory is within his grasps.
“We got really close to winning a couple of races. We ran second in one of our first races at Milwaukee, then we ran second to Johnny (Sauter) at Nashville and we ran second to Joey (Clanton) at Winchester and I think should have won that race,” Cope said. “I know we can win races. We’ve still kept up with the cars and stayed in contact with people in the series, so I don’t believe we’ve fallen way far behind. Having my own racetrack to test at is really a great tool. I can try something out, run up to my track and run 40 laps or 50 laps or 100 laps and get a feel for it. Short tracks are short tracks and that is a great tool. I can also run to Lakeland and test there.
“I really feel that we can win our first ASA race. I feel that we were best in class a few times and were able to run second. That’s not a bad deal. ASA is great competition and to run second there is proof that you can run up front and the next thing that will come is winning. I feel that I prematurely stepped out of the deal when I was on the verge of starting to win races.”
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