Bucher Turns Racing Dream Into Reality

Published on National Speed Sport News on Oct. 15, 2013

http://www.nationalspeedsportnews.com/racing-nation/plains/bucher-turns-racing-dream-into-reality/

By Nicholas Dettmann

BEAVER DAM, Wis. – Jim Bucher watched race cars whip around the short tracks of southeastern Wisconsin with much admiration for those people behind the wheel for many years.
He never thought he’d be one of those people. And for four-plus seasons now, Bucher, 38, of Richfield, Wis., is one of them, which by itself is an impressive accomplishment for the real estate broker.
As of five years ago, he had no idea how to change the oil on his car, let alone did he know what the parts underneath the hood of his car did. He’d tell you he’d be the last person to ask for car advice.
But he loved the sport so much, he knew it was something he wouldn’t mind trying if he was afforded the opportunity.
Then one day his wife gave him the go-ahead.
“My wife and I were done having kids, so she said, ‘Go ahead, buy a race car,’” he said.
And he did.
Bucher’s “spectacular” racing career, he said, started at the end of the 2007 season. Growing up, he admired the drivers at Slinger Super Speedway, which was less than 30 minutes from his hometown of Menomonee Falls, Wis., a northwest suburb of Milwaukee.
“I had been going to tracks in the area trying to figure out what to get into, saw the Legends, and knew right then what I was going to race,” he said.
As one would imagine, it wasn’t easy. However, Bucher was prepared to do his homework.
After the 2007 season, he took apart his entire Legends car, piece by piece, just so he could learn what each part was and what it did. To help him through the process, he took pictures at each stage that he took a part off the car so he knew where it needed to be returned on the car.
He did most of his learning by himself. He did have some outside help, though. Dan Troyan and Chris Johnson were there and willing to help.
“It gave me people to bounce ideas off of,” Bucher said. “I had a lot of self-doubt. It’s nice to have someone to call at any time and give you a pointer.”
He made a lot of phone calls at the start. At times, he felt a bit guilty about how often he’d bug them. Troyan was good with engine setup and tuning, while Johnson, a former modified driver, was good with the suspension.
With more work, a lot of hours of consultation and practice, Bucher began to figure it out. He was able to figure out how to change the oil on the car.
Bucher thought when he showed up at the race track for the first time as a driver, not as a spectator, he was going to be embarrassed.
To his surprise, Bucher was welcomed with open arms by the people he was going to race against and try to beat. That was enough of a reason to stick with it.
“It’s just a great group,” Bucher said. “I can’t imagine racing anything else.”
Racing provided a solace for Bucher, a way to get away from the hustle and bustle of owning a business.
“To me, I guess it’s more of a relaxation thing,” he said. “It’s a time where I need to completely focus on what I’m doing.
“It’s just a time away where I can clear my head and not worry about the everyday financial business stuff.”
Racing put him at ease. He couldn’t chance focusing on anything else but racing once strapped into his car. If he let his focus just slip a little bit, it could’ve been disastrous. After a while, he felt more at ease in his car, whipping around area dirt tracks, sometimes racing on the edge of disaster.
That still holds true to this day, even after a scary accident in 2008, just about a year after his racing career began.
“It was the second lap,” he recalled. “I remember that somebody got down into the infield and everybody checked up. I was on the high side and I clipped them. I was feeling nauseous. I opened my eyes and I was spinning. Next time I opened my eyes, I saw feet (from the safety workers outside the car).”
Since then, the crashes haven’t been as scary and he’s figured out how to win races, too.
In 2012, he took his first checkered flag in a heat race at Beaver Dam Raceway.
This year, he added another heat race victory. And he had a strong 2013 season on the third-mile dirt oval about an hour northwest of Milwaukee.
Bucher finished seventh in the points standings at Beaver Dam and in the top 10 of the national standings in the pro division. At one point this season, he had 14 top-10 finishes, including 10 in a row. His best finish was fourth July 13. Combined in heat races and features, Bucher averaged a seventh place finish.
As the season’s laps clicked away, Bucher decided to continue to learn so he experimented with different car setups to no avail.
“It was consistent until the last month,” Bucher said about the season. “I tried a couple things that didn’t work out.”
He experimented with different car setups, such as spring and suspension combinations. In his first 14 starts of the season, he had just one finish outside the top 10. He had five in the final six weeks of the season.
Going into the INEX Dirt Legends Nationals, which was held last weekend at Bucher’s home track, Beaver Dam, Bucher was nervous.
“It’s exciting to have it here,” Bucher said. “But then there’s the added pressure that I race 25 times a year (at Beaver Dam) so it’s expected for me to do well. It’s expected the guys from Wisconsin should do well because we’re here all the time.”
“I’m nervous just because I know I need to perform well and with the way I ended my season, it wasn’t how I wanted it to end,” he added. “I did change everything back.”
Bucher went on to finish 15th in the 16-car field after being caught up in a crash just short of the halfway point.