Stockwell Losing Sleep
Over the Milk Bowl

Kip Stockwell of Braintree has had this coming weekend marked on his calendar since last winter.

Stockwell’s a late model driver in the American-Canadian Tour, and this Saturday and Sunday is the 44th running of the famous Milk Bowl stock car race at Barre’s Thunder Road.

It is an event Stockwell has tried to win seven times. His father, Lennie, tried four times from 1967 to 1970. Kip came close one time.

"I had to beat Dave Dion and Phil Scott in the final segment to have a shot at winning," he remembered, a confident, it’s-in-the-bag attitude in his voice. "I cleared Dion on the backstretch on the 18th lap, and I’ll tell you I was smiling pretty wide."

Suddenly, the 34-year-old’s voice changes sharply: "On the 19th lap, I was in the wall, wrecked, and that was it."

For Kip Stockwell and anyone around to hear him tell the story, it was, and to a degree continues to be, a source of agony and bitterness.

To the Stockwell family—especially Kip—the Chittenden Milk Bowl is more than just a race. A victory in the three-segment event—regarded by some as the toughest race to win in North America—symbolizes what it takes to be a short track racing hero.

And it is all Kip Stockwell can think about.

"I hate it," he said this week. "I hate that it’s all I can think about. I hate that I spend so much time preparing myself for it, when I know there’s a chance I may not even qualify," he said.

For the Family, Too

"I want to win it for myself, because it’s something I’ve worked my whole life for. But I want to win it for my wife and my boys, and for my mom and dad. They’ve put a ton of money and time into my career; I want to pay them back with a Milk Bowl win.

"We’ve won three times at Thunder Road this year, but I’d trade it all for the Milk Bowl. Even talking about it, I get a nervous feeling in my stomach. It drives me nuts."

"I want Kip to win the Milk Bowl eventually," says Lennie, "but his time will come. If it’s not this year, it might be next year or later down the road. I want him to win it for himself, not for me. He puts enough pressure on himself without me adding to it."

Lennie—known in racing circles as "Tiger" for his orange and black-striped racing jacket in the 1960s—won the third 50-lap segment of the Milk Bowl in 1968, finishing a career-best fifth in the overall, cumulatively-scored rundown.

(The Chittenden Milk Bowl awards one point to the winner of each segment, two points to the second-place finishers, three points for third, etc. The driver with the lowest three-segment total score is the overall winner.)

Lots of Changes

"It was the same race then as it is today, but in a totally different time," Lennie recalls. "Back then, 99% of what we ran came from a junkyard. With Kip’s Late Model, 99% of the car is store-bought.

"It was a big deal if somebody could turn a lap under 16 seconds when I was racing, but if Kip runs at 13.2 seconds these days, he’s off the pace.

"But the Milk Bowl has always been a tough race."

Once Kip gets past his anxiety in talking about this weekend’s race, you can tell he has a strategy, a game plan, and even a bit of philosophy.

"I know how to position myself to be in contention—set the car up, qualify well, and relax—but Thunder Road can push you around.

"Whoever wins on Sunday afternoon is going to have to have a lot of luck and a few magical moments. They’re going to have keep calm from 8 o’clock on Saturday morning when the gates open until the race is over on Sunday evening."

And then Kip says something that makes the whole idea of results seem trivial: "In all honesty, it won’t even matter to me next Monday how well or how badly we do. A weight will be lifted off my shoulders, whether we win or wreck, because the pressure of performing in the Milk Bowl will be off.

"I’ll sleep at night. It’ll be over and done with. We’ll get ready for next spring."