Writer's note: The following profile is one of Wendy Fontaine's favorite stories. It was published in the Newport Daily News on August 30, 2001.
LOVE
OF RACING RUNS IN HIS BLOOD
By Wendy M. Fontaine
SEEKONK,
Mass. -- At 5:50 p.m.
on a sweaty Saturday night, Jim Silvia is buried under the hood of his banged-up,
blue Camaro.
His fingers, his black-and-white jumpsuit are covered with grease, and the air
is thick with the smell of burning rubber and hot asphalt. Drivers all around
him are busy checking their oil, putting air in their tires and worrying about
how their cars will hold up over the next few hours.
As if in slow motion, Silvia tosses his wrench aside, slips his slight frame
into the cramped driver's seat and slides a helmet over his curly dark hair.
He revs his engine and steers toward the track, where nearly three dozen other
drivers are lining up their cars, waiting for the green flag.
"From Middletown, Rhode Island, in car No. 116, itās Jimmy Silvia,"
the race announcer hollers.
In the stands, the people who have known Silvia all his life cheer alongside
people who have never met him. They yell. They whistle. They slide onto the
edge of their seats.
The green flag drops and the race cars tear off. It's Saturday night and the
excitement has just begun for Jimmy Silvia.
• • •
Monday through Friday, 32-year-old
Silvia is a blue-collar guy, painting houses and putting up wallpaper in homes
on Aquidneck Island. But when Saturday comes, he's the race-car driver the fans
love most at Seekonk Speedway. He's a 5-foot-1-inch hero, the person everyone
seems to be cheering for.
As a teen-ager, Silvia would occasionally travel to Seekonk with his father,
Ronnie, to watch the races, but it wasn't until he got his driver's license
that he started going every week.
When he turned 18, he entered in the race track's Demolition Derby Spectacular,
where drivers do their best to cream the competition and be the last automobile
still moving. He also competed in reverse racing and in the Figure 8s, a blood-tingling
race where drivers speed over tracks that criss-cross in the middle.
If racing hasn't saved Silvia's life, it has definitely helped shape it. Growing
up in Portsmouth, he often found himself in trouble -- with his father and his
mother, Doris, as well as with the police department. Racing, he said, gave
him something to look forward to, something else to focus on.
"What it did was occupy all my time," he said. "I was still no
angel, of course."
"That boy gave me the most joy and the most heartache at the same time,"
his mother said.
Silvia graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1986 and went to work painting
houses for his uncle, Lenny Silvia, who showed him the importance of hard work
and family.
"The way he conducted himself gave me good guidance," Silvia said.
In 1992, he started his own painting and wallpapering business, Quality Paint
and Paper. The same year, he joined a new class of race-car driving-Accel Street
Stock.
• • •
Silvia's car is just a blue streak whirring around the track at about 80
mph in the first race of the day-the time trial for the feature race. He could
drive faster if the track were larger, like the one in Thompson, Conn., where
he also likes to race. There, he can go about 120 mph.
His relatives, wearing dark blue T-shirts with "116" printed on the
backs, are clapping and yelling from their usual spots in the stands. Three-year-old
A.J. is watching his father from a checkered-flag blanket covered with Matchbox
cars. Silvia's parents, grandparents and his girlfriend, Kelly Cooper, celebrate
in the stands with the fervor of a tailgate party, eating barbecued pork sandwiches
and drinking Cokes.
Down on the track, Silvia suddenly steers his car out of the lane and toward
the pit after only a few laps. Something is wrong, his father says. Something
is wrong with the car.
Minutes later, in he pit, Silvia discovers his carburetor is malfunctioning
and he has no spare. He is in a bind.
But before the problem becomes an all-out emergency, a competitor, Eddie Moniz,
who drives car No. 65, comes over to the crew and offers to lend Silvia a carburetor.
"If you want it, it's yours," Moniz says. "I can go get it."
Pit crewman John Alves pops the part into place under the Camaro's hood and
the Middletown racer is back in business.
"See that?" Ronnie Silvia says. "Everybody helps each other out
. . . but once you get onto the race track, it's a different ballgame."
His son is busy again, this time changing a ripped tire while he waits for the
feature race.
• • •
Auto racing is a dangerous sport and Silvia has suffered his share of injuries.
In addition to having whiplash twice as a demolition derby driver, Silvia had
a close call about three years ago. At the Seekonk track, he spun his car on
a turn and another racer slammed into his driver's side door. Silvia's car was
ruined, his intestines were bruised. After a few painful days, he went to the
hospital for magnetic resonance imaging.
He raced one week later at the Connecticut track
"Jimmy - -even when he was a little kid, he was always a thrill-seeker,"
said Doris Silvia, who gets nervous when watching her son race. "My heart
pounds so bad I feel it coming out of my back."
If the car were to flip over, she pointed out, his racing number would read
911.
Silvia is the most popular racer in his division at the Seekonk track, having
recently won first place in "Fans on Parade," a friendly competition
in which spectators choose their favorite racers.
"Weāve got a huge amount of fans," Silvia said. "Some people
might say Iām overaggressive and I guess some people in the stands, they like
that."
"Heās absolutely excellent," said Ronnie Silvia, who loves to hear
people cheering from his son. "He's as good as any of the drivers on this
track."
Every race-car driver has sponsors and Silvia's include Beach Hardware of Middletown,
All American Meats and Seafoods of North Kingstown and Willis Motor Sports of
Portsmouth. But in addition to the money he gets from sponsors each season,
Silvia and his father put a lot of their own money toward the sport. Parts are
expensive, they said, and they use only the best equipment. One tire, for example,
will cost about $85 and last only three races.
The prize for a first-place finish is just $150.
"It's one of those sports where, if you have that desire to race every
week and you work on the car, it's a very competitive sport," Silvia said.
"It's not like baseball or football because it's just you and your car.
At the end of every race you can't wait to go back the next week and try something
different. . . . The competitive side of me, it really keeps me going, keeps
me working on the car weekly so I can win."
• • •
Just as she does every Saturday, Doris Silvia points her camcorder at the
track as her son's car rolls into line with the other 24 racers for the main
event. Because he dropped out of the time trial, he must start near the end
of the pack.
Another green flag and the racers are off, careening again around the track
in a tight flock. His relatives are on their feet, cheering and clapping. A.J.
lets out a high-pitched squeal and pumps his little fist into the air.
Twenty laps to go. Silvia takes the outside lane in an attempt to move ahead.
He passes one car and is moving in on another when the Camaro makes a loud pop
sound.
He leaves the track, out of the competition for the night, thanks to a problem
with the ignition.
Silvia watches the rest of the race from a lawn chair in the last row of the
stands. He strokes his son's back as they watch the cars squealing through the
turns and bumping against the walls.
"Weāll be back next week," his father says. "If we were racing
tomorrow, we'd be back tomorrow."
• • •
Silvia returned the following Saturday, finishing first in the 25-lap feature
race and breaking his streak of bad luck.
"It was an exciting race," he said a few days later. "It makes
it all worth it, because I knew the next week could be better.
"Some people love fishing and go fishing all the time. Other people, we
love racing. It's just one of those things where you just get hooked."