If Dave Germain were most people, he would have quit a long time ago.
"We keep thinking we have it figured out, and we keep finding out we don't," says Germain, veteran driver of the Tigercat Top Alcohol Funny Car and a retired firefighter with the patience of Job. "You drive away from the race track Sunday and ask yourself, 'What the hell did we do wrong?' "
Germain has two DNQs and a first-round loss so far this year. Last year, it was four DNQs, a first-round loss, and a second-round loss. The year before that, it was two first-round losses and two DNQs, and the year before that, three first-round losses and a second-round loss. In 2010, he had two first-round losses and a DNQ, in '09 it was three first-round losses and two DNQs, and in '08 he DNQed in his only appearance. That's two round-wins in seven years. A lesser man would've given up.
"You get home from a race," Germain says, "and people will come up and ask you, 'Well, did you win?' The next race: 'Did you win this time?' Next race, same thing. Hell no I didn't win. It's kinda tough out there, you know?"
"I don't know how he's done it," says Eric Krume, Germain's partner on the car, who works about 18 hours a day at Krume Logging and in his "free time" serves as Germain's crew chief. "I don't know what keeps Dave going, but he's always smiling, always happy. I like to tune and want to drive, but I'm not going to bring out another car when we haven't been able to get this one running right."
"We hurt so many pistons, the crew's gotten to be like a NASCAR crew," Germain says. "Only instead of, 'OK, let's change the right-side rubber and gas it up,' it's, 'Let's get this thing torn apart and get some new pistons in it.' Every run it seems to get two or three pistons, and the car just eats parts like you wouldn't believe, but no matter what we do, we can't get it to run. We keep changing stuff and changing stuff and changing stuff, and it gets pretty frustrating. We've changed clutch programs, changed blowers, put a whole new ignition on it I don't know how many times. Last year, we got a whole new chassis. Same thing.
"I'm actually starting to think we're getting bum data from the computer," he says. "You have an idea of what's a lean air/fuel ratio and what's a rich one, but that's all dependent on the boost reading and the flow-meter reading being accurate. You look at the RacePak, and the car should be blubbering rich, but the spark plugs sure don't say that."
Eschewing the computer data and going off what the parts told them, Germain and Krume ran an easy 5.78 last weekend in Woodburn, Ore., that has them and their Tigercat teammates Lee Crosslin, Hal Westerlund, Matt "Ishmael" Fortin, Don Houser, Scott Armstrong, and Kim Germain feeling optimistic heading into to the biggest race of their season, this weekend's Northwest Nationals.
"We just went back to an old tune-up, and the car liked it," Germain says. But, as he knows better than anyone, 5.70s only get you so far when you compete in a part of the country that sometimes has regional events with bumps in the 5.60s.
"There are a lot of Funny Cars out west, and a lot of big hitters from California that we're always up against," Germain says. "You scratch your head and your bottom lip is sticking out when you don't qualify or get beat first round, but there are 16 cars in the field at every national event, and 15 of them are going to be losers. There are hundreds and hundreds of cars at every race, and only eight or 10 of them are going to win. I've been around this deal for a long time, and that's just the way it is."
Krume, 46, is way into the nostalgia scene and has been involved with the sport since the old 64 Funny Car days at Seattle in the 1970s, when he helped out on Jim Green famous "Green Elephant" Vega. Germain, 56, has been hopelessly addicted to drag racing since he converted his '69 Roadrunner, a former SS/DA car, into a street machine when he was still in high school.
"I kept moving up a little, getting stuff a little nicer and a little nicer and eventually ended up building my own Super Comp car from the ground up," Germain says. "People would ask me why I ever moved up from Super Comp to Alcohol Funny Car, and I'd tell them, 'I had to. I was never any good at Super Comp.' In that class, if you're late, you can't make it up. If you don't have about a .017 light every time, there's not a snowball's chance in hell that you're going to win. You need to cut a light in Alcohol Funny Car, too, but if you don't, at least you still have a chance to drive around them."
Calling on the stick-to-itiveness that carried him through decades of risking his life fighting fires for the Tacoma Fire Department, Germain remains as undeterred as ever. "I'm a lousy quitter," he says. "I'm just not good at it. I was a firefighter/paramedic for the city of Tacoma for 30 years, 27 on the rescue/medic unit. You don't quit – someone could die. Most firefighters are adrenaline junkies. No one would ever wish anything bad on anyone, but we were always ready for something to catch on fire, something to happen.
"Drag racing is like that. It's a hell of a challenge. You keep waiting, waiting, waiting for that one exciting run. You'd be amazed at how many people want to give me advice. It's not like we haven't paid tuners. We've paid plenty. People have even told me, 'Hey, you know this guy might be a better driver than you. He's lighter. He's got more experience.' Well, as long as I'm writing the checks, I'm driving the car. Someday, I'll get this deal figured out and think, ''Why didn't I see that a long time ago?' It'll probably be some stupid little thing. But one way or another, it is going to happen."
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