Every young boy wants to be a race car driver at some point

Luckily for Travis Hanson, his father never outgrew that desire, either.

“Dad is the right person to have in the righthand seat,” said 22-year-old Travis, the man behind the wheel of Team Hanson Racing, a Williamsburg father and son combo aiming for success in the national Rally America series this year. 

Travis’ father Terrance, 55, is the service manager at Traverse Motors in Traverse City. As part of Team Hanson, he rides shotgun, calling out turns.

They drive a blue Subaru WRX Impreza, No. 523. With local sponsors and some elbow grease, the Hansons are hoping to expand on their 2006 regional championship win in the Central Division of the Production Grand Turismo class.

Rally racing involves street legal cars in staged races on public or private roads, sometimes thousands of miles long. The Hansons received a champagne salute after grabbing second place at their first national event this year, the Sno*Drift Rally on Jan. 27, in Atlanta, Mich.

However, they sat out the last two races this season because of distance and, well, because they’re waiting for the ride to get repaired. They hit a bit of trouble in the last leg of the February 100 Acre Wood event in Salem, Mo.

“We did have an ‘off’ (crash) down in Missouri and ended up kind of wrecking the car a little bit,” Terrance said.

Attrition is very high in rally racing. The Hansons were in second place before the mishap in Missouri — their fourth racing wreck. Ahead by five minutes, they simply needed to finish when standing water on the track had other ideas. 

“We hit some water, hydroplaned and ran off the road right into a tree stump,” said Terrance. “It was rather abrupt. It ripped off the left front wheel of the car, catapulted us through the air and we flipped up on the roof.”

Terrance and Travis were a little whiplashed and Travis suffered a broken tailbone. The car is currently hospitalized at sponsor Olsen’s Auto Body, where it is being treated for suspension and alignment. 

Travis is a 2003 graduate of Traverse City Central High School and is currently pursuing a mechanical engineering degree at Kettering University in Flint. The university offers a cooperative work study program, with one quarter in classes, one quarter in the work-a-day world getting practical experience, and so on. Travis is a senior.

His current work study is at Team O’Neil Rally School in New Hampshire. There he is paid to teach student racers — including military Special Forces types — the practical and technical know-how of rally racing.

It’s only been recently that the pair moved beyond spectator status.

“I was probably 19-20 years old with my dad and we were watching cars go by, thinking ‘We could do this,’” Travis said.

Automobiles were a big part of Travis’ life growing up. They began attending races, eventually crewing for a team one year. In 2005, they called that racer, paid $5,000 for his Subaru and Team Hanson was in business. They are aided by a volunteer crew of one to three people. 

It ain’t cheap. Even with the assistance of sponsors Olsen’s, TranTek Automation and Cherry Capital Subaru, they are dipping into retirement and inheritance money.

While rally is the main game right now, Travis professed an interest in drift racing. That has the driver controlling the car in a way that the rear slip angle is greater than the front’s, creating a “drift.”

Stock car, though, is not a goal. 

“I definitely would not be interested in NASCAR ‘turning left’ style racing,” he said.

Terrance said that most of their competition has far more — in some cases decades more — experience in road and rally racing than either of them and “as far as I’m concerned, (Travis) is right there.”

Because of the mishap in Missouri and the nature of rally racing itself, safety is a subject not far from their minds. The car has a series-required roll cage, fire protection and each wears a special harness for neck protection.

“Rally racing is certainly a sport where you could potentially die,” said Travis, who is comfortable with the calculated risk.

“We talk about it a bit,” said Terrance. “I guess there (is) some inherent danger — we’ll just deal with it if it happens. I’d like to think the car is safe enough that we’ll walk away from it.”

Because of distance and car repair time, they won’t make it to Olympia, Wash. for the next stop on the Rally America series. Their next race is in Pennsylvania for the Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally in Wellsboro on June 2. 

Want to follow along? Visit www.rally-america.com for live race updates.