A Win Might Be More Than Just a Win

Words and photo by Brian Losness

The win at this year’s Ignitor at Boise was also therapeutic for a member of the Bucky Austin team. Wes Morris is a successful junior dragster racer at Firebird Raceway. A couple of years ago, Wes told Bucky Austin that he wanted to drive nitro cars when he got older. Bucky took the young man under his wing and started putting Wes to work doing small jobs with the team when Bucky came to Boise to race.

Fast forward to today, Wes now goes to many of the races as a full team member. However, two weeks before the Ignitor, tragedy stuck the Morris family when Wes’s older sister died in a car crash. Wes and his sister were very close and it hit Wes very hard.

According to Wes’s father Carl, “Being at the track is the best thing for Wes right now to help him get through this. Bucky has him so busy doing stuff on the car, he has to focus and do what he is asked. They depend on him.”

Behind that big gruff exterior of Bucky Austin lies the heart of a person who really cares about kids.

“Wes is going to be a helluva drag racer when he gets into the Big Show in his twenties,” Austin says. “He can look back and say I had a good time with Bucky and Steve Plueger, and those guys.”

But don’t think that this is just Austin being nice. Wes gets the mechanical and scientific aspects to drag racing and is a real asset to the team.

After Boise, Austin said that while the team was fortunate to get the win he also feels that maybe somebody was looking down on the team getting the win.

There are times when divine intervention is a needed thing, and in the case of the Morris family and Team Austin, it couldn’t have come at a better time.