RPW Column: OCFS Street Stock Racer Charlie Donald’s Championship Caliber On & Off Track

Column By: MIKE TRAVERSE / RPW – MIDDLETOWN, NY – Charlie Donald attended his first Orange County Fair race at the age of 4 months. He has grown up with a love and enthusiasm of the sport that would be hard for someone to surpass.

Donald began his racing career in the Street Stock division at OCFS in 2006. Except for a brief foray into the Sportsman division in 2016, Charlie has been one of the mainstays of the division for the past 15 years. He sits in 3rd place on the all time Street Stock win list at OCFS with 29 trailing Al D’Antonio and Emerson Cargain Sr. In addition, Donald is a two time champion in the division, winning back-to-back titles in 2011 and 2012.

“Reaching 30 will be a good milestone, I’m hoping that we can do it in 2021,” said the always pleasant to talk to Charlie.

For the longest time, he has been one of the most popular drivers with the fans, not only in his division, but at the track period.

Well known as The Jalopy Jet, Charlie says his career highlight is getting the win at the 2015 Eastern States Weekend.

“One of my championships was won on the last corner of the last turn of the last lap,”, Donald said. “But there was nothing like winning our biggest race of the season on the big stage before a big crowd.”

And Charlie pointed out it was a great team effort with some help from a young racer that helped him that day.

“Rob Sedita’s and my team had two cars that we raced in 2014 & 2015,” Charlie said. “Danny Carlough drove the other car and he had some good success, winning a couple of races in 2014. I learned some things from Danny. One time, he went up and passed Mike Vigiletti and that just didn’t happen in that time frame. All of us in the division went up to Danny to ask him how he did that.”

“For that Eastern States win, we both qualified for the front row. It was great for out team. Danny ran well, but he had mechanical trouble and dropped out. But it was great to have him as a teammate for those 2 seasons.”

After the 2015 ESW, Charlie moved into Sportsman for the beginning of 2016.

“It was like learning to drive all over again. Before the season was over, I was back into my street stock. It’s my favorite division to race in and I know that it is great and competitive racing to watch,” Donald said. “I can’t say that I will never move up, you never know if the right opportunity would develop. But I am perfectly happy in my street stock.”

One of the great things about Charlie is the good things he does for the sport. He has been a great ambassador of OCFS and Street Stock racing for many years. Anytime OCFS is going to make an appearance somewhere, you can bet that the #32 Jalopy Jet will be there to give it’s support to that event and to the track.

“The speedway knows that they can call me and let me know that there is a show or an event that is taking place that I will do my best to get my car there. It’s so important to keep the fans involved. They are the ones that are needed to keep this sport alive and thriving.”

And except for 2020, Charlie has for many years taken the #32 down to Rockland County to the Camp Venture facility in Sparkill, NY. Camp Venture is premier provider of support and services for people with intellectual / developmental disabilities in Rockland County.

“We have gone to Camp Venture for many years. The people there, especially the kids, are always so happy to see the car, hear the engine fire up and get a chance to sit in the car.”

2020’s Covid-19 restrictions temporarily halted the annual visits. But those who use their services still got fix of Charlie last year.

“They asked for us to come back last year,’ Donald said. “But because of state regulations, we weren’t allowed to come onto the property. When OCFS released the 2020 Eastern States Weekend on You Tube, it was shown at Camp Venture. After they viewed the video, I heard from them and many of the people there were so excited to see the car that was out there racing that they had seen up close and maybe had taken a seat in. I was very humbled to hear how the kids reacted to the video. To hear these types of things is one of the reasons that I race.”

Charlie’s good things don’t stop there. One Sunday morning in December of 2016, this writer received a message from Charlie wanting to stop by. When he got here, he gave to my son Matt a custom model of the #32 Lothar’s Body Shop Jalopy Jet. Charlie had asked a person that he knew, John Gibbs, to make it for Matt and he did a magnificent job. Instead of Charlie’s name as the driver, he had John paint Matt’s name in the driver’s spot. It’s one of Matt’s prized cars in his collection.

“I like to do things for the fans. If I can bring some joy to someone like Matt, it makes it all worth it,” Charlie said. “Sometimes, I’ll do something like making some Jalopy Jet keychains, photos or something like that to give out to the fans. It doesn’t cost that much to do and it’s a way to keep the young fans interested.”

Charlie has been very active over the years with the Little Miss OCFS Pageant. He has helped with the paperwork the contestants have to fill out and he has be a judge unless there’s someone in the pageant that he knows. It’s just another way that Charlie contributes to help spark interest to the younger crowd for racing.

Donald’s most recent win was in 2018. But Charlie sprung a big surprise on someone that year. On Nostalgia Night on June 2nd, the Jalopy Jet, instead of their usual yellow and black car, unveiled a new awesome looking red and white #32 1/3 car, a tribute back to when Tommy Meier ran in the Street Stocks. Tommy was totally surprised and honored with the scheme. It was just another great thing that Charlie has done.

Charlie finished 9th in the points in 2019 and had a serious looking crash during the season on the OCFS frontstretch. It was a high speed collision with Kevin Colman. Charlie was able to walk away, but the effects hit him the following day.

“I didn’t realize it at first, but I had a concussion. I had to take a couple of days off to let the brain heal.”

With OCFS’s Street Stock abbreviated point season of 2020, Charlie placed 3rd in the points, trailing Bob Sleight and Rob Taylor. In October at ESW, he came very close to gaining Eastern States glory for a 2nd time. After taking the lead on lap 3, Charlie led most of the race until lap 20 when contact from another racer caused a spin. Donald was able to recover from the spin and race his way back towards the front. He challenged Jim Hajkowski for the race win, but finished .088 seconds behind Hajkowski at the checkered flag, about half a car length.

“It was a fun race. When got to the lead and I saw Rob Sedita in the 3rd turn showing me how much of a lead that I had and to stay in the low groove. It was like a step back in time,” Donald said. “I think that overall, it was the most competitive race of Eastern States Weekend.”

Many racers would have been livid about having a spin from contact with a big win in sight. But showing anger at the track is something that Charlie will not display.

“Sure, I can get mad, just like anyone else out there,” Donald said. “But my main thing is to have fun racing. I’m not going to go looking for a fight if there’s a crash. That’s not something that I want the young fans to see from me. Life’s too short for that kind of aggravation.”

“It was really a great race with Jimmy that day,” Donald continued. “We raced those last few laps close, but clean. I always liked the way guys like Jimmy, Emerson Cargain Sr and Joel Murns race me. We race hard, but respect each other and do our best to avoid any contact with each other.”

And Charlie wants his fans to know that whenever he may have a bad night at the track, he will always be approachable in the pits after the races.

“I remember going into the pits in my younger years and not wanting to bother a driver after a bad night. That’s not the type of feelings I want to convey. I want my fans to know that I will always talk with them or sign their program or photos after a night of racing, good or bad.”

For 2021, Charlie will once again be in competition at OCFS and he will be doing some traveling around to some other tracks with a new creation in the works.

“We will be racing the yellow & black car at OCFS and our new creation, the red & white at some races at Five Mile Point and Accord. I’ve never been one to name my cars, so I just call them yellow & black and red & white,” Donald said.

“The yellow & black ran so well at Eastern States Weekend that we are going to basically leave that car the same,” Charlie said. “We will spruce it up some with some new paint and possibly some better body panels. The red & white is what we are working on now. It’s a 1979 Camaro that is going to have a 2013 Camaro body. An old school car with a new body and we are looking forward to get onto the track.”

Charlie is extremely grateful to the help that he gets from his main sponsor.

“Lothar’s Body Shop has been so great to our team. I can bring my car down to the shop during off hours to work on it and I can’t thank them enough for what they have done for me.”

Rob’s Landscaping is the other sponsor that Charlie had in 2020. Other businesses that appeared on the #32 were Rookies Pizzeria in Florida and Rock Fantasy in Middletown.

“Steve Keeler from Rock Fantasy has been a big fan of racing and he put up a nice halfway bonus for our ESW race and I thank him,” Charlie said. “Also, the job Jordan Sheehan does with the lap sponsorships for our Street Stock Championship Race is awesome.”

During the week, it’s mostly just Charlie working on the car along with his dad. On race nights, he gets engine help from Jeff Holz. And Jeff’s daughter, Christina Holz, always scrapes the mud off of the car after hot laps. Charlie always parks next to Sportsman racer Joe Conklin. Joe and his crew are always ready to pitch in and help Charlie through the Saturday events.

Going into the 2021 season, Charlie has a message for the fans.

“We can only hope that Covid doesn’t affect us as bad in 2021 as in 2020. It’s going to take awhile to get back to some form of normalcy. We missed our fans. Try to do anything that you can to support the track. Go to any car shows. If the grandstand is open, go to the races. Go to the drive in. If the live stream is available, use it if you cannot make it to the track.”

Charlie Donald is an easy driver to root for and if he drives the #32 into Victory Lane in 2021, it’s going to make many of us very happy. Good luck Jet.