Joe Haferkorn in the #22

Jun 17, 2008

Imagine this for a moment.

A driver is in the lead with only one lap to go. He has been neck-and-neck with another driver all race, but has maintained the edge throughout. The other driver makes a move on turn two to jump into the lead. The first doesn’t try to fight him off by bumping him around, but simply continues to drive his style. He takes second in the event.

You’re probably thinking to yourself, shouldn’t the driver in the lead have maybe nudged his opponent a bit? After all, there was less than one lap to go.

If you know Joe Haferkorn, you know that would be out of the question.

“I was always a clean driver. If someone was along side of me and had the edge, I let them have it,” said the 1996 & 1999 Sportsmanship of the Year award winner. “I never did much of the hitting and bumping. If your car is better, you can go around them.”

That is just the type of driver, and man, Joe Haferkorn is.

Joe got into racing at a relatively young age and in a somewhat unique way.

“(Racing) was something that I always wanted to do since I was small,” said Joe, who drives the #22 Forest County Potawatomi stock car. “I was raised on a farm and raised around a lot of equipment. When I found out you can compete with that kind of equipment, I was hooked.”

The man pretty much taught himself everything he knows about racing. Starting out in the late 1960’s, Joe recalls things being a little different back then.

“Everything was less technological back when I started, so it was a lot of trial and error. You’d have to see one of those cars to properly understand. You just had to know your car and how it ran to do well,” Joe explained.

This 2008 season will mark the 40^th year Joe has made his way onto the track. He’s had his share of highlights to go along with all his hard work. As well as being named Sportsman of the Year twice, he also was named Driver of the Year in 2000. Those aren’t the things the man behind the #22 car cherishes the most however.

“The period of years I raced in Sturgeon Bay, those were probably my best years of racing,” said Haferkorn. “I ran a couple of championships when I was there (in the 70’s). Those are probably the years that will stick with me the most.”

These days the “Wolverine Racer” keeps his racing schedule a little more manageable, racing a little closer to home including his favorite course of Langlade County Speedway in Antigo, Wisconsin. Don’t think that 40 years of racing has slowed this man down at all though. If you make that mistake, you’ll see him waiting for you…at the finish line.