Who is Steve Arpin?

(I have no idea, never heard of the guy, but he is driving the #7 this weekend at Dega for JR Motorsports. Here's an article from NASCAR.com on him and how he got the chance to drive the car for Junebug.)

Edwards sees himself in Arpin, as others might
By Dave Rodman


The best thing about time passing is that, every so often, an event re-occurs in your life -- an event that the first time it passed was so positive, even if you didn't realize it at the time -- it could be considered priceless.


One of those happened in November 2000.


At the time, no one out in the world knew Arpin was about to embark on possibly his greatest career step to date. He didn't even know that a one-race trial, at Talladega of all places, with JR Motorsports had already turned into two-in-a-row, via a Richmond follow-up in JRM's No. 7 Chevrolet.


Three days later, Nationwide Series director Joe Balash had taken Arpin to the NASCAR catering trailer in the Cup garage to get some lunch. Arpin met Brett Bodine, who heads the committee that approves drivers' transitions up the career ladder in NASCAR's national series, and then he also met and had an exchange with NASCAR president Mike Helton and Sprint Cup director John Darby.


You wonder, racing aside, how special could this kid be? Remember, he had just won the past two ARCA races, the first on one of the most daunting high-speed, high-banked short tracks in creation, and then, Friday night with a car that had been, uh, torn up a little in an early accident at Texas -- the speedway that's certainly just as daunting as Salem, with 60-or-so mph added-on.


Arpin said he hadn't known anything about racing Richmond until he heard JRM's co-owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. saying it in a media interview, and that "I never had a prouder moment in my career than standing there, listening to [Earnhardt Jr.] talk about me."

The next day, Edwards himself reflected on what's been a whirlwind of a two-year period, not only for himself but also Arpin.

"He's got one helluva future," Edwards said, shaking his head. "A lot of people are gonna be jealous of him, cause he works harder than anyone I know, he's a good person and he's gonna have all the success that a guy could have. I truly believe that.

"I've seen him do truly unbelievable things with race cars and he's just starting on pavement -- I mean, he doesn't -- he won that ARCA race the other night and after the race I went over there and the upper ball joint's broke on the car, and it's [wheel and tire] flopping around. The fender's all smashed-up -- the left-rear of the car is all smashed up and he won at Texas.

"That's pretty tough."

The first thing you have to understand is Edwards is no different today than he was 10 years ago, and considering his status in racing, the championships he's won -- that's truly amazing.

But he's a fan. He loves dirt racing and he follows this stuff. Case in point: more than two years ago, he read a story in Speedway Illustrated by Karl Fredrickson about a Canadian dirt track racer from Fort Frances, Ontario.

"I was a fan of [Arpin's] -- I thought, 'this guy's cool,'" Edwards said. "And then he was working on his car and he got burnt [during Speedweeks 2008 in Florida]."

Edwards said Fredrickson -- who in addition to writing about racing also races himself -- called him and tried to explain who Arpin was and what had happened, but Edwards quickly cut him off.

"I told him, 'I know who he is, you wrote an article about him,'" Edwards said, laughing. "But Karl said 'they'd like it if you'd drive his race car.' So I went over [to the Volusia Speedway Park dirt track in Barberville, Fla.] and drove his race car -- and did terrible in it, so he kind of showed me up, there."

And thus a totally innocuous meeting in a terribly busy professional athlete's career led to a very special connection. And now two years later, Arpin has the chance of a lifetime, thanks to Edwards "bugging" Tony Eury Jr. and Earnhardt Jr. to give the kid a shot in a JR Motorsports car.


That initial shot comes this weekend at Talladega and Eury Jr. is already talking about Arpin's first opportunity in JRM's flagship car, the No. 88 Chevrolet. Arpin's scheduled to drive the No. 7 car again at Richmond because Talladega is so unique -- the team wants him to carry the momentum of working with its personnel to a track where he'll have the potential to show them what he can really do.


Edwards is already convinced.
"He's just one of those guys -- he's earning it," Edwards said, his face changing to an expression of dead-seriousness. "He has so much energy -- so much positive energy and will and desire -- that there's no way he can fail. He's just got it."


And that just begs the comparison, to a kid who hitched rides to race tracks, who criss-crossed the country to win a Baby Grand championship -- a kid who continually had to make that ages-old racer's choice: Tires and fuel, or eating better?


And he chose being faster, every time. You just have to believe that Edwards -- now that he knows Arpin better -- sees a reflection of himself in the 26-year-old.

"Yeah," Edwards said, shaking his head and looking quickly at the ground like he wasn't real comfortable with the spotlight. "I meet a lot of people that want to drive race cars, but he wants to more than anybody else that I meet, and people used to say the same thing about me.

"I'm a little nervous to race with him [chuckling]. Once he gets pretty good -- I might've created a monster, here -- not to say that I created it, or whatever, but I've been doing everything I can to help him, just because he embodies ... you want to help people that help themselves, you know what I mean?

"He calls me up and he's got simple questions -- all I have to say is 'yes' or 'no.' He's on a mission."

And when you talk to Arpin a little bit, you don't have to scramble much to close your eyes and think back to Memphis and Milwaukee and Kansas back in 2002, where Edwards scored his first top-10 finish -- in his first speedway race. You almost can't tell who you're talking to.

And you can only hope you're able to witness a similar path.

"What a great kid," Wallace had said last week. "I'm just so afraid he'll get the big head and man, I hope that doesn't happen."

"I love race cars -- they're just my whole life and they fascinate me," Arpin said on Sunday -- but then he quickly back-pedaled with an ever-ready smile. "Of course, that's besides my wife, Trina."

I tell you what Kenny -- from what I've seen of his influences and his career path to date -- we might not have anything to worry about that with young Mr. Arpin.

And that, my friends, will be truly priceless.