THE PLAYERS
The 2021 Plymouth Dirt Track Racing B Mod Championship was truly one for the ages, and got nowhere near the coverage it deserved. Frank vs Bauer was a heavyweight title bout between two relatively unknown drivers in the Midwest Sport/B Mod world.
Justin Bauer is young, but not inexperienced. Several moderately successful seasons highlighted the Sheboygan Falls, WI driver’s career, but no real “head turning” results indicated a championship run was in store for 2021.
Trevor Frank was a photographer two years ago. Then one day he went out and bought a sport mod, much to his dad’s shock. “He just showed up at home and said, ‘Hey Dad, I’ve got a surprise for you.’ It was exciting but also a little scary because we had no idea what we were getting into.” Trevor’s father Todd Frank said. “To be where we are now is unbelievable.”
Unlike Bauer, Trevor did have some head turning results in his Rookie of the Year campaign in 2020. A heat race win in just his second start, and podium finishes late in the season set up the Frank Motorsports team for a 2021 full of possibilities.
“To be honest, points racing wasn’t really on our radar for 2021.” Frank said. “We just planned to take it night by night and hopefully race well and at the front. Then the first few nights went really well and we had the points lead, and at that point it felt like we were competitive enough and had the confidence to race for the title.”
STAGE: SET
Fast forward to the midway point of the 2021 season at Plymouth. Trevor Frank has a 12 point lead over Bauer in the standings. However, things take a turn for the worse. Frank gets turned around in turns 1 and 2, and is hit hard by several other cars. The Sheboygan driver even blacks out momentarily and is taken off the track in an ambulance with an arm injury and a whopping headache. “It was scary for sure,” Frank said “But I was honestly more concerned with what was junk on the car and how we were going to come back from this. Our operation isn’t a ‘big money’ deal. It all comes out of my pocket and my dad puts an unreal amount of work into the car to make it work. Everyone works so hard and to have a big stumble like that in the middle of a season sucks, but that’s racing.”
Frank and the 21F team came out swinging after the mid-season falter. Two podiums and his first career victory helped the team claw back the points they lost to Bauer’s 75 car, and heading into Championship night the gap was closed to just two points. “We had two straight rainouts leading up to ‘ship night.” Trevor said. “It kind of screwed us out of closing the gap even more or taking the lead, but we were confident heading into the final night. Two points just meant we had to beat Justin in the heat and feature and we’d be champions.” Trevor then laughed and said, “It sounds simple, but we had a lot of ‘out of town’ guys show up on that last night. Some really good drivers with them, and it made everything a little more stressful, but we knew we just had to beat one guy. We could have finished second to last, but as long as the 75 was behind us, we would win.”
“Of course, you want to win races.” Todd Frank said on Championship night. “But the big picture is what we’re worried about. We just need to play it smart.”
ALL THE MARBLES
After a lackluster heat race for both Frank and Bauer, the two would start 13th and 15th, respectively in the 25 lap A Main. Immediately, the two started picking off cars. “Our car was lightning fast in the feature.” Frank said. “My crew made some amazing adjustments after we were terrible in the heat race. I felt like I could drive it anywhere I wanted to, but I knew Justin was right behind me the whole way.”
After a late race caution, Frank lined up 5th with Bauer directly behind in 6th. Trevor dove low into turn 3 to pass Shane Long coming to one lap to go, but got a poor exit out of the corner and Bauer pulled even with the 21F under the white flag. “I had a poor turn 4 and he got a great run on me.” Trevor said. “I saw him drive deep into [turn] one and I tried a half slider to squeeze him off of two. I drifted up off of two and felt a huge ‘bang’ at the rear end and felt the back of the car come off the ground. I thought we might have been done but it came back down and I had a great last half of the lap and held him off.”
Bauer had tried to fit between Frank and the turn two wall on the backstretch, and Frank’s Right Rear hopped over the 75’s Left Front coming off the corner. Sparks flew, tempers flared on the cool down lap as Bauer rear ended Frank in frustration, but the 21F rolled to the scales in 5th place, a Champion.
“It’s just unbelievable.” Frank said at the end of the night. “To be here after all that we’ve gone through this year is insane. We lost my Grandmother last year and this is all for her. She would have loved to see this.”
“I still can’t believe it.” Todd Frank said at the end of year Awards Ceremony. “I guess it still hasn’t sunk in that we pulled it off. We’ve got this big trophy and everything else, but it doesn’t seem real. I’m so proud of this kid.”
Trevor Frank absolutely packed the stat sheet in 2021 at Plymouth.
Nights: 12
Average Finish: 5.91
Top 10’s: 9
Top 5’s: 7
Heat Race Wins: 8
Feature Wins: 1
Frank Motorsports now looks ahead to 2022, where the Sheboygan outfit will field a two car operation, with Trevor’s older brother Brandon Frank piloting the 10B Sport Mod and Trevor will return in the 21F. Their schedule is TBA as of now, but will be released later in the off season along with sponsor announcements.
Trevor Frank and the entire 21F team would like to thank their 2021 partners for helping them be able to compete at the front this season!
American Senior Benefits of Wisconsin
Cody’s Custom Bodies
Odyssey Fun Center
Crazy G Design LLC
Frank Motorsports
Doug’s Skip’Er Inn
Throttle Down Threads
Josfo Electric
Box3 Media
PC: Emily Schwanke
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