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ELKHART LAKE – After 16 seasons in NASCAR, the last 13 of them in the Premier Cup Series, Paul Menard retired at the end of the 2019 season.
Since then, the Eau Claire native, winner of the 2011 Brickyard 400, has only made brief appearances on the racing scene.
Last year, that involved two Camping World Truck Series races, at the Circuit of the Americas road courses, where he finished 11th, and Watkins Glen, where he finished eighth. This season, Menard has raced three times in Trans Am.
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The most recent event, and likely the last for 2022, came Saturday at Road America, where he finished second to Kaz Grala in the 100-mile Trans Am Series race that ended in rain. Menard scored one of his three Xfinity Series races at the 4-mile track in 2015.
We met with him over the weekend.
Are you competing in a partial Trans Am season? What’s the plan?
This is my third race with Showtime Motorsports. (Businessman/racer/car collector) Ken Thwaits owns the team. We did Sebring and we were very fast there and we had a mechanical problem. Then we went to Charlotte and we won there. And here we are at Road America.
He wanted to put me in another race (after Sebring and Charlotte). We talked about Lime Rock or something like that. I have never been to Lime Rock. So we thought, at least we have to do Road America.
Have you been intentionally keeping a low profile when it comes to racing?
No. I’ve just tried to live my life. I got out of it. Make a decision. I walked away from it.
The direction the sport was taking, the way the rules worked, it was no longer fun to race. There was no point in being away from home 40 weeks a year with two young children and not having fun driving the cars that they were. I now race several times a year and these cars are great to drive.
Is that your perfect schedule? Three or four races a year?
I’m fine doing a few a year. I would like to put together a program to do a season full time next year. We may have some options there. Ken has been very good to me in everything. Trying to get the money and the people to do it right is what everyone is trying to do. Everyone is fighting each other about it.
It’s a great series. I could run 11 races a year and be quite happy, I think.
Have you done any ice racing? (That’s where Menard started.)
I haven’t, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot. You lie in bed at night with your phone or when you brainstorm and look at things, I’ve been looking at options to maybe build my own ice runner and run it a couple of times a year. Man, that’s pretty funny too.
Would you like to do more NASCAR races… like here?
I’d sure run another NASCAR race here. It is one of the best tracks in the world. I love road racing.
Going back to driving a stock car in Kansas with limited power and all the aerodynamics… no. But coming to some of these tracks… I would love to race at Bristol again, one of the tracks that has character, where you have to drive the car. It is fun. And Road America, these road races, are that.
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When you do this, you only run a couple of races in a year, is there rust that you have to remove?
It’s been pretty good. I get in the car… we did two tests and this is our third weekend of racing. Every time I get in the car, it comes back pretty quickly.
There are some things you take for granted. When you’re running all the time, the way your body builds muscle…especially on the ovals, you’re so shifted to the left. Here you are building up some core strength in these cars.
I always try to stay in shape, so it’s good. But I notice it in my neck or my core strength, some of the things you miss out on by not doing it all the time.
Is there anything you miss about the NASCAR schedule and all that goes with it?
You knew what your year was like. Now the children are out of school. What do we want to do? Go camping?
It seems that you have to make decisions much faster, where before it was planned how the whole year would be. You had a week here where you could go on vacation. You knew you had a Wednesday. Wednesdays are pretty open in that world. Mondays are meetings. Tuesdays are (for) recovering, Wednesdays are quite open, like a day to go do something. So Thursday is a travel day.
Now it’s a brave new world out there. Now we have a new routine. So when I go camping, or if I do a four-day whitetail deer hunt in the winter, it’s hard to be four days away from my wife and kids. That has changed. Before it was so routine. They’re used to you leaving. Now when you’re gone, it’s really hard to do.
Are both children in school?
Yeah. It’s summer vacation now, so we drove here from North Carolina and took a little road trip. I love a road trip. The children behaved well and we had a good time.
So you’re still in North Carolina. How involved are you in the business? (His father, John, founded the Menards home improvement chain.)
I am involved. It’s hard to have kids in school and figure out when it’s the right time to move here if we move here. If all is well here for us to do that. There are many variables.
So the family is okay?
Life is good. It’s what you make of it.
Is this the last time you’re going to run this year?
The last planned. We could do another. We have talked about it. We are always talking to see if we can put something else together. Right now this is the last one.