By Sarah Handy, Staff Writer
For the first time in 33 years Bobby Gerhart will miss the ARCA Menards season opener at Daytona International Speedway in February.
The reason?
The Lebanon, Pennsylvania native recently suffered a heart attack and as a result the 61-year old won’t be racing at Daytona.
I guess you could say I got the greatest Christmas gift of all,” Bobby Gerhart told ARCAracing.com. “I was at home and wasn’t feeling well and drove myself to the doctor. When I got there, they said I had a pretty serious heart attack. It could have been a matter of five minutes or five hours, but had I waited, it’s pretty likely it would not have ended up as well as it did. I still have a very long road to go but I have been given a second chance here and for that I am very lucky and very grateful.”
Gerhart had a streak of 32 straight starts at the 2.5-mile superspeedway with eight victories and 15 top-10 finishes on his resume.
Gerhart will continue to be involved with his race team, but he will remain out of the driver’s seat for the foreseeable future.
“I guess we can say I am stepping out of the seat immediately due to health issues,” Gerhart told ARCAracing.com. “It’s maybe not the way I envisioned it but at the same time I feel like I was given a gift with the way it all went down.”
“I travel all over the country, not just with racing but buying and selling big rigs for work. Had that happened when I was away from home, who knows if I would have decided to drive myself to the nearest hospital and get checked out. I never felt any symptoms. I don’t eat fried foods and I don’t eat a lot of red meat. I’ve never had high blood pressure. I just won the genetic lottery I suppose,” said Gerhart.
Gerhart has made 341 ARCA starts since 1998 amassing nine wins, 55 top-five and 124 top-ten finishes with nine pole awards.
His best finish in the ARCA series championship came in 2006 when he finished second to Frank Kimmel.
In addition, Gerhart has made starts in all of NASCAR’s top-three national series with 10 NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoor Truck Series starts, 18 NASCAR Xfinity Series starts and 24 starts in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Gerhart is hoping to find someone to drive his well-known No. 5 in the season opening Lucas Oil 200 Driven by General Tire on February 8.
“It’s awfully late in the going, we know that,” Gerhart told ARCAracing.com. But we have really great equipment ready to go. All we need is a driver to plug in and we can go win Daytona.”
“We’ve done programs like this in the past with drivers like Kyle Krisiloff and Blake Feese. We have a great record of success at Daytona and working with other drivers so we’re hoping even with just a few weeks to go we can find someone who wants to go race.”
Nobody else is big on the Superspeedways as Bobby Gerhart. He is the All Time February Champion at Daytona, above The King Richard Petty and that would hinder the Menards National Season Going Forward.