At the beginning of each race season, teams have a main goal, WIN THE CHAMPIONSHIP! Anything short of meeting that goal forces you and your team to step back and reflect on why your efforts have fallen short.

The Art Schmitt Racing Team is no different. At the end of the 2005 race season we did not meet our goals! The ultimate question, why?

As the 2006 race season approached, the question once again became, “What are the things that we must do differently this year on order to win the championship?” Art hadn’t had a new Frontier built in 4 years. Since then, the track had evolved into a faster track with high speed corners. Our answer, build a new Nisan Frontier to fit today’s faster tracks.

This past winter in the new fabrication shop was long and cold. Finally, though, we were getting closer to completing our new trucks. But our dilemma, “How are we going to test it?” It is still too wet and too cold in the land of Crandon Wisconsin. We are faced with taking our brand Nissan Frontier to race in Chula Vista straight out on the fabrication shop and onto the race track; not exactly a situation to test a new vehicle.

Race 1 the Nissan Frontier lands on the roof. Race 2 we run into a steering problem and slam into the wall. Not the outcome we were looking for.

We head to Crandon after all the repairs and modifications to the Nissan are made following our first set of mishaps testing in Chula Vista, with the question… “Did we go forward or backward?”

The race weekend ended with a 4th and a 3rd in a field of 26, with the second fastest lap time in the class.

Lookout Chad, Jeff and Kyle, our new Nissan Frontier is knocking at your door!