ARCSOA Behind The Scenes with Kenny Myatt: Episode # 4 posted

The nerve wracking entry to motorsports: The Story of the First ARCSOA season

The first ARCSOA season was highlighted by off-track drama, and nerves for the 20 teenagers that participated in the series. Kenny Myatt highlights what it was like back then. However, before we get to Myatt's analysis here is some insight into the climate then. ARCSOA was initially supposed to be a developmental series. The first season of ARCSOA was also the last for the ARC/RSOA. There was a grand plan that the ARC/RSOA would merge together and form a "master series" that would combine the drivers from both series into one race. However, infighting prevented that from happening. While this was going on, the ARC/RSOA decided to combine together and form a combined developmental series called ARCSOA, a combination of both names. With the plan that the 20 drivers that participated in ARCSOA, would be the stars of the new grand series of the future. However, the infighting put these 20 teenagers on the spot, and forced them to mature a lot quicker than they probably would have anyway.

Here is a quote from Kenny Myatt, "I was being groomed for RSOA competition, I think Nick (Mace) was too. The Hart's naturally were being groomed for ARC. The first season of ARCSOA, was the last seasons for the ARC and RSOA. There was an idea that there was going to be a combined grand series for Season 2, and all four of us were shoe-ins for rides in it. But as the first season went on, it became clear to us as teenagers that the combined grand series would never see the light of day. We were under the impression for a while that the ARC and RSOA would keep fighting to the point of no return. I thought this would be the only time I'd get the chance to race with Noah or Jacob. Both the Hart's were set to go to ARC, and Nick and I would run to the RSOA."

Myatt also described some of the tension of starting out then, "We had no clue of our future. I remember we'd get done with an ARCSOA race, and one of us would have won, and all you'd hear were a bunch of old men fighting over logistical rights. The oldest driver in ARCSOA at the time was Jake Warren, and he was only 20 years old. It was one of those moments where the dumb kids were acting more mature than the adults. We carried on every week developing this upstart, combined developmental series thinking it would only see one season. There was a lot of tension going on."

Myatt was also keen to describe what racing in ARCSOA was like in the first season, "There were races where we didn't have a competition director. He would get distracted from his post to argue with some ARC guys. Then he'd get fired, and an ARC guy would replace him. Then the same thing would happen. There was a brotherhood in that paddock that I can't describe between the 20 teenagers that were on the grid. We realized that we would just have to police ourselves on the track. We did a good job of that, outside of me tipping a porta-potty with Greg Brown in it. We laughed about that for a while until he was killed in a Sony Cup Series crash. I remember ARCSOA would companion either the ARC or RSOA that first year, and as the season went on we were drawing bigger crowds than either of the main series."

Myatt also was keen to recall what happened in the end result. "We knew that a grand combined series was never going to happen. We just thought that ARCSOA would die after a year, and we'd go to our respective series. I think each and every one of us were capable enough to race in either the ARC or RSOA. The big shock was when the RSOA declared bankruptcy. At that time, Nick and I were panicking because we had no where to go in the ARC. Then 5 days later while the ARC was attempting to buy the RSOA's assets, their chief leaders get arrested for money laundering, and the ARC falls. The entire ARCSOA paddock was heading into our championship race in D.C, I had pretty much won the championship leading up to it. All I had to do was not finish last, and I had it. But I was secretly, dirt scared about my future. When I won the championship, there was hardly any celebrating, because we didn't know what the future held for us. I remember at the championship banquet, saying my goodbyes to everyone. I won't deny that some of us shed a few tears. We had all made such good friends, and it all looked like we were going our separate ways."

Myatt then recalls the saving grace moment, "We were all screwed, and because of the capitulation of both series, we lost a few great drivers to other endeavors. But our racing back in the first season of ARCSOA got so much attention that there were buyers. ARCSOA was the only asset from the two series that didn't fold. We were the only ones that made money. One night, I get a call on our home line, and my dad runs up to me and tells me that a Ohio/Michigan based conglomerate bought the assets to ARCSOA and intended on running the series again. They then put RSOA supremo, Bill Carpenter in control. Bill was a nice guy, and really none of the RSOA's problems were his fault. The conglomerate dumped a ton of money into marketing ARCSOA. I remember a week later meeting up with Nick, Noah, and Jacob. These people were my best friends from that season and we had all said our goodbyes to possibly never see each other again. Then a week after the buyout we were all back together at a media event with Bill Carpenter standing in between us. It was all really surreal. The only difference the 2nd season was that, we knew that WE were the 'elite series'"

"That is why I have such a close bond to Noah, Jacob, and Nick today. The younger drivers commonly asked us why we have that bond. We went through the most hellish conditions possible to forge our racing careers. We practically matured together too. Now, I have kids, Noah has a son, Nick probably has a kid out there somewhere that he doesn't know about. We all grew into men together simply because of the conditions we were put under. I think about it a lot today. I am helping my daughter begin her ARCSOA career, and in some ways it is harder to do today. There is a lot of cooperate stuff she has to do, and BFM does a great job in prepping her for it. However, I would not wish it upon anyone to have them come up the way we did. There was so much fighting, and so much nervousness that we couldn't even celebrate victories that first season. Even the second and third seasons, we were still trying to get our footing. But I wouldn't change it at all. Some say that Noah, Nick, Jacob, and myself are the best drivers in ARCSOA history. Why I am not entirely sure about that, I will say our rise was one that was quite a bit more challenging than some of the drivers that I think might be more talented than any of us."

Entertaining!

*Loud Applause*

I have moved this thread into the current ARCSOA section. I plan on writing more of these!

The race that changed my life: The Season 14 American 700

I distinctly remember that night as being the hottest day I had ever run an ARCSOA race to up to that point. It was the first American 700 not held at Auto Club Speedway. Which was a mistake in general because while we were away from Fontana, the American 700 lost it's luster quite a bit. Daytona was the only exception to that rule. Daytona was also the first 700 miler not split into 3 segments. Which was a good move because the race being a consistent 700 miles is a good thing. 

Leading up into that race, I remember being with my two kids. I was in charge of them while my wife was leading a medical team briefing. It was a crazy weekend, my wife had just announced her pregnancy with our third child, and there was a lot of concern about driver exhaustion because the race was the first 700 miler without the hour long breaks between segments. She had a lot on her plate that day. 

That day, I remember being repetitively calm compared to the other drivers in the paddock. I was playing with my then 8 year old twins, Sean and Madeline, with no idea that in a handful of years Maddie would be on the American 700 grid with me. Once my wife got out of her meeting, I relinquished the kids over to her, while I prepped for the race. 

During the race, I actually fell out quite early on. I had come close to winning the American 700 the year before, but I really wasn't all that confident with my car in the 3rd running. However, I was analyzing radio, and watching the race very closely. The Red Bull cars were insanely fast throughout the weekend. I remember talking to Sean (Perkins) before the race started, and I knew he was confident with his car. 

When the large accident between Houston and Andreas Allen took place, I knew something bad had happened. The way the #43 exploded upon impact was quite scary. I ran to the medical center simply because I knew my wife would be doing some pretty intense work down there, and that having two kids running around in the medical center wouldn't exactly make her life easier. 

Back in those days, there was no place for the drivers kids to hang out with each other. So Sean and Madeline hung out in the medical center with their mother. Considering virtually no one got hurt in wrecks, it never was an issue. In fact, I remember Noah Hart telling me that one of the single best moments in the medical center after a scary wreck was when Maddie picked a flower for him after he was in a wreck. They would commonly draw get well soon cards for the drivers, stuff like that. 

I knew when I saw that wreck, I needed to get them the hell out of the medical center. Considering I was already out of the race, I ran to grab them, and took them back to our camper. Madison (my wife) still tells me that was one of the smartest things I could have ever done, because it was pretty gruesome. 

My wife pulled of a miraculous medical job on Andreas, and played a role in saving his life at Halifax medical center. That was the day I realized how special my wife Madison is. I always have loved her in a way I can't even describe. However, I really never looked at her as someone who could save my life if I were ever in trouble. Then I saw what her role was in saving Andreas Allen's life. 

Andreas doesn't hang around ARCSOA that much anymore. He hasn't run a race since despite me and a few other old timers pushing him to race. 

When Jeffery (Finguy) had his bad wreck at Road America, I knew that he was in the best hands of the ARCSOA safety crew. My wife didn't even work on him, because she had a flu bug that weekend and her second in command was the one that actually saved Jeffery. 


Anyway back to the race, I sat in the camper watching the race with Sean and Madeline. Sean never was that interested in motor racing until he was about 13 years old. Madeline predictably was looking rather intently at the race. Even moreso than me, because I was kind of disillusioned with the whole affair after the wreck.

When Sean Perkins won the race after coming from a lap down to do so, Maddie quipped a phrase I will never forget. "Dad, I am going to win the American 700 when I am older." I knew then that Maddie was interested in motor racing, much to my terror. 

To this day, it frightens me that my daughter is out there. Back then the thought of it terrified me. I guess you get used to it. 

No American 700 has reached the 14 running for me. Hell, I wasn't even in the race for maybe 200 miles of the race. But it was a race that changed my entire life.

The Best crash of my life


A racing driver never has a good crash. However, one particular crash ended up changing my life in the best possible way. 

It was the third ARCSOA Elite Series season, and I was a dumb kid with not a care in the world other than racing. Now I have stated in the past, the original drivers of ARCSOA partied a bit too hard. We were motorsports rockstars back then, and boy did we take that to the umpteenth degree. 

With the rock-star lifestyle we portrayed ourselves as living, the females followed us. I have never seen a racing series with such a young female following back then. However think of it, we were a bunch of teenagers making a million plus. So females of our own age group would naturally follow us. I don't know what was going on in some of the haulers, as parental oversight was virtually non-existent back then. I was one of the quieter ones in the paddock. However, I can't deny that some things were going down back in the day. I will never tell what went on in my hauler back then. 

Anyway, we were making our debut trip to Japan. Needless to say, ARCSOA didn't have quite the international following that we would have liked. No one really cared. There were a few Japanese groupies. But they tended to stay with Mace and the Hart brothers. I remember staying in my pod, (we had these strange little pods we stayed in over there) and read books. It was a pretty calm weekend to be honest. 

Friday practice rolls around, I remember being quite fast in the opening session. I was driving the #2 car back then if I remember. I remember running down to 130R and I had no brakes. I skidded off the track at high speed and right into the tire wall. It was the one time in my career, I knew I was hurt the moment I hit the wall. I remember being extradited by the track crews and being thrown into an ambulance to be taken to a Japanese hospital. 

Before I go further, I have to describe the medical team back then. You had Dr. Gobal, who was the chief physician of ARCSOA. Dr. Gobal was not well liked by many of us. He was one that would always rat us out to the ARC people back in the initial season of ARCSOA. 

Then you had a bunch of Dr. Gobal's medical interns. Dr. Gobal liked to grab a bunch of first year medical students from colleges around the country, and world, to staff the medical staff. These interns were typically incompetent. I remember one intern was going to have me sit out because I had a splinter at Barber Motorsports Park, because they thought I needed "extraction surgery." 

These interns were incompetant, because a lot of them weren't in medical school. They were undergrads in a medical program at nearby colleges. But since they were on the ARCSOA medical team, they thought they were hot stuff. We hated them.

Dr. Gobal also had strict rules about the interns hanging out with us. We were seen as black sheep, and to be fair, most of us were. When you had members like Greg Brown, Nick Mace, and the Hart Brothers being the most visible drivers back then, I don't necessarily blame him. 

Anyway, I get thrown in this ambulance, and I remember we were waiting on an intern to ride with me to the hospital. I ended up tearing a good deal of my shoulder muscles, as well as pulled a few neck muscles. Still to this day, I have neck problems from that wreck. 

I was pissed off because we had to wait on one of Gobal's flunkies to come and take me to the hospital. All of the sudden the back door opens and this redheaded girl steps into the back of the ambulance. I had never seen her before ironically. I remember, she looked a bit lost. She quickly introduced herself as Madison Forsythe, and I remember her apologizing quite profusely about being late, and the fact that she had never done a hospital run with a driver before. 

I really wasn't paying attention to what she was saying, I was paying close attention to her sweet Amarian accent, which sounded like a strange mix of a British and an Australian accent. 

We arrive at the hospital, where all these doctors are talking Japanese around me. I have no clue what they are saying. So I ask Madison what the heck was going on. She perks up and starts speaking Japanese with the doctors. Needless to say I was impressed. 

This girl was cute, intelligent, and very sweet with me. By the end of the day, I was smitten. Keep in mind, not a lot of the ARCSOA paddock had ever had a steady relationship with anyone. I asked her out by the time I was released that night. She initially turned me down because of Gobal's orders. But when I kept coming to the track while I was on injury leave, I eventually changed her mind to go out in secret with me. 

I eventually got around to telling Gobal that we were dating against his orders. Dr. Gobal was initially really pissed, and threatened to kick Madison out of the program. However, a bit of Myatt smooth talking started to smooth him over. 

However, the only way I knew she wouldn't be kicked out of the program was to prove that I was more mature than the rest of my ARCSOA companions. So after only 3 months of dating, and with Madison's medical future riding on it, I proposed to her. Dr. Gobal was shocked I took such a step. By this point, I also found out she was the daughter of a senior Amarian Nationalist Party Minister. Needless to say, the Amarian tabloids that the leader of the opposition party's middle daughter, was getting married at age 20, to an American race car driver that she only met 3 months prior. 

We had the whole ceremony really fast. My parents loved her to death. They were just glad that I could continue on the Myatt name. Plus they liked the fact that I was marrying someone smarter than me. We were married during an off week in Season 4, on September 9th. Needless to say, we didn't expect to be parents of twins on June 3rd of the next season. You have to keep in mind that Sean and Maddie were premature. But we made it work out. But the story of raising those two clowns is for another day.

OOC: What do you think?

Kids in ARCSOA


Oh the joys of marrying young and having children at 21. Kids in ARCSOA are actually a lot more common now than they were in the days of my eldest two. I remember being absolutely terrified on June 3rd of the 4th season of ARCSOA. I was barely old enough to take care of myself, and now I have a wife and twins. 

As infants, Madison's best friend would come around to a few of the races, as would my parents every once in a while. I guess Madison and I were really lucky that Sean and Madeline were pretty well behaved compared to other members of the ARCSOA children's community, *CoughTimmyHartCough.* The other thing that I guess helped Sean and Madeline was that we were one of the few couples that actually stayed together. 

Madison and I were always terrified about Sean and Madeline doing something stupid. Face it, we were a young couple, who were basically kids ourselves. But we were lucky, they were always very well behaved, and we were complimented on it. To be fair, Ian was a very well behaved as well. Aubrey on the other hand has a tendency to wake the entire motorhome lot at 3AM. I got a lot of flak in New Mexico for that one. Our overhead microphone out of the camper was left on, and Aubrey was NOT happy about the rash on her stomach. Aubrey who is 8 months old now, is quite the loud baby. She's drastically different than Sean, Madeline, or Ian. 

One of my favorite memories with my family was back around Season 7 or 8. We had this double stroller that myself or Madison would push around the track throughout the weekend. Well, we were at Road Atlanta that weekend, and we were jogging on the other side of the track, on death valley. Well, the one wheel came flying off while Madison was pushing it. Luckily the kids weren't hurt by the incident. However, Maddie came up with the best line ever. She said, "Daddy, I hope that doesn't happen to you in qualifying today." The funny thing was, in the exact same spot in qualifying, I lost a tire, and miraculously hung on to it, similar to how Madison grabbed that stroller when the wheel came off. 

The final family memory I had actually happened a month ago at the American 700 post-race ball. Keep in mind, this was Maddie's 3rd American 700, therefore she has become quite accustomed to these dances. Ike (Durbin) started dancing with his wife/girlfriend. Then everyone else picks up their significant other to dance. Well, I am lucky that Madison knows how to dance, because I am hopeless at it. But while we are dancing, my wife taps me on the shoulder and twists me around and says look over my shoulder. Much to my terror, I see Maddie dancing with a boy. The boy I found out was the son of the president of the Orion corporation. 

Now there is one thing more terrifying than my daughter driving a 200 MPH race car around Fontana, and that is her dating. In the three week break between Fontana and Findlay, they became a couple. I took a trip to the gun store after that.

Dunbar: Woah. I’m nineteen, so thanks for the advice. Gonna miss you in the pits next season.