Stanley Lojko

General mechanic

The first time I ever remember seeing a racecar I was 6 or 7 years old and the car was my cousins number 1 modified Charlie Jarzombek. It was at his old potato barn shop on Osborne Avenue in Baiting Hollow New York. My Uncle and my father took me to watch him race at Westhampton. I don’t remember who won but I had a lot of fun. Whenever I had the chance I went again. Riverhead mainly, but we started attending the race of champions at Pocono when I was about 15 and would go every year. I went to school with Kenny Heagy and when he started racing I started helping. This put us elbow deep in the nuts and bolts of Modified racing right from the start, and we were all we had. So if we wanted to race we had to do whatever it took.
Over the next 5 years with Kenny I learned a lot mostly by trial and error. Different people with different experience would sometimes offer advice and later Desmond and Greg Gorman A.K.A. (the Twins) ” would sometimes help out. In 1992 I worked with Jay Hulse on his number 66 Charger car at Riverhead Raceway as a general mechanic and some limited tire and chassis setup duties. Then in 1994 along came Joey Hartmann with the number 5 Riverhead Charger, I worked on this effort from ground up. As we built this car together we ran together from 1994 to present. In 1998 Joey started racing Modifieds. We won approximately 12 races together with both divisions. The question came up; what was the best time I ever had in racing. My answer is every time I can go to the track and compete in the sport I love it’s the best time I ever had. The worst night I ever had in 1999 at Riverhead when Joey Hartmann hit the turn 3 wall, with a stuck throttle. Joey was leading the qualifying race when the incident happened. The impact was so great that a wheel assembly flew over the wall and hit the Winston official, Walt Edsel, hurting him badly. Joey was trapped in the car with some personal injuries. That was a scary Night. I met Eddie at the races and was hired by his trucking firm as a mechanic. I became more involved with TS Motorsports just by being here. I’m looking forward to a good 2001 race season and I have some advice for anyone looking to get involved; with racing, come to the races and talk with people in the pits, there is always people looking for help and the racing family will welcome you.

Stanley Lojko