Steve Meade — a.k.a. Willie B to KBPI 106.7 FM listeners — likens his rise in becoming a national drag racing celebrity to a no-name musician becoming the lead singer of his favorite and famous band.
In other words, he feels like the Mark Wahlberg-played character in “Rock Star.”
“Now I’m on a show I used to religiously watch and I’m a huge fan of,” Meade said.
Meade, 41, is in his second season as co-host of “Pinks All Out,” a national reality series on the passionate sport that is drag racing. He’s raced competitively at Bandimere Speedway since 1996, and he attended the inaugural “Pinks” weekend at the Morrison track nearly two years ago.
Word spread of his talents behind the mike and in the car during the filming at Bandimere, and after being introduced to the show’s executive producer, he was soon offered his dream job.
“I’m kind of a gearhead, a car guy, and my dad was a car guy and all my friends are car guys,” said Meade, who grew up in Winchester, Ky., and began working at KBPI in 1993. “I spend all my extra time and money with racing. I’ve lost girlfriends and wives over that.
“Once you go down the track and get that adrenaline of staging against someone with the lights and everything, it’s such a rush and you get addicted and want to go faster and faster. Not a day goes by when I don’t think, ‘How can I make my car go faster.’ “
Meade has three race cars, including a 1968 Dodge Super Bee and 1970 Dodge Charger — both capable of covering a quarter-mile in nine seconds.
When he’s not traveling for “Pinks” on the weekends, he’s at Bandimere. He will host Sunday’s KBPI Rock & Roll Car Show at the popular track.
Meade completed filming of this season’s fifth “Pinks” episode last weekend at Virginia Motorsports Park. The show, which makes its season premiere July 22, returns to Bandimere on Aug. 13-14 for the second time in three years.
“They fly me out on Friday after my morning show, and I get back on Sunday evening,” Meade said of his weekend job. “For me, it’s like winning the gearhead lottery.”
Signs of success.
Furniture Row Racing once felt fortunate to produce top-20 finishes, but ending in the top half of the 43-car field has become the norm lately for the Denver-based Sprint Cup team.
Driver Regan Smith has delivered top-20 results in three of his last four starts, including an 18th-place finish Sunday at Pocono Raceway.
Smith improved three spots in the standings to a team career high of 28th at this point of the season.
“Though we’re not content with our recent performances, I feel we’re on a positive run and only see us getting better as the season wears on,” Smith said in a release.
Smith’s average finish this year is 25.3. In his first year with the team in 2009, it was 27.7. With other drivers in 2008 and 2007, Furniture Row’s average finishes were 28.2 and 30, respectively.
“We know that top-10s are now realistic goals,” Smith said. “Before it was top-20s, now it’s top-10s.
“We hear so many times that you need to take baby steps in this business. Well, we are doing that, but we’re also anxious to get to that next level.”
Spotlight: Denny Hamlin
Riding winning wave
Two months after undergoing major knee surgery, Hamlin led a race-high 88 laps Sunday and won for the third time in eight career Sprint Cup races at Pocono Raceway. He has a series-best four victories this season and improved from fifth to third in the standings. “Your performance always comes in waves, but we’re definitely very confident in what we have, the cars we have planned for the Chase,” Hamlin said in a release.
On the move: Scott lewis
Rolls to a third consecutive win
The late-models driver from Henderson won Sunday’s Colorado Late Models Association DIRTcar Series feature at Colorado Motorsports Park, his third consecutive win at the first-year oval in Byers. Since October, Lewis has captured four of the circuit’s last five races in Colorado. He finished 15th in Saturday’s feature in Jetmore, Kan.
Race or watch
The following Front Range motorsports venues are located within 50 miles of Denver and offer weekly races:
Bandimere Speedway (quarter-mile drag strip, Morrison)
303-697-6001 or
Colorado Motorsports Park (one-third-mile dirt oval, Byers) 720-422-5244 or
Colorado National Speedway (three-eights-mile paved oval, Dacono) 303-665-4173 or
I-76 Speedway (quarter-mile dirt track, Fort Morgan) 970-867-2101 or
Thunder Valley (motocross park, Lakewood) 303-697-1003 or
Watkins Motocross (motocross park, Watkins) 303-341-6309 or
National schedule
NASCAR SPRINT CUP Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400 Site: Brooklyn, Mich.
TV: Sunday, 11 a.m., TNT
NATIONWIDE Meijer 300
Site: Sparta, Ky.
TV: Saturday, 6 p.m., ESPN
CAMPING WORLD TRUCKS VFW 200
Site: Brooklyn, Mich.
TV: Saturday, 11:30 a.m., SPEED
FORMULA ONE Canadian Grand Prix
Site: Montreal
TV: Sunday, 10 a.m., KDVR-31
NHRA FULL THROTTLE NHRA Supernationals
Site: Englishtown, N.J.
TV: Sunday, 2 p.m., ESPN2 (tape)
