Jerry Davich: Local doc moonlights as racecar driver
JERRY DAVICH jdavich@post-trib.com September 3, 2011 10:14PM
Munster High School graduate Jay Patel in his race car. | Provided photo~Sun-Times Media
Updated: September 6, 2011 9:38AM
Jay Patel punched his foot to the accelerator of the 2005 Porsche GT3 Cup racecar.
With a souped-up 400-horsepower engine, and weighing just 2,700 pounds, it growled like an angry tiger before zooming zero to 60 mph in a matter of seconds.
Although I was buckled in tightly to the passenger seat with multiple straps, with no wiggle room at all, my helmeted head snapped back at the sheer power of the racecar.
“Are you ready?” asked Patel, revving up the car’s engine as the strong smell of gasoline wafted between us.
I clutched my digital recorder in one hand, my camera with the other, and gave him a thumbs up. In less than 20 seconds, we were hitting more than 100 mph on a 2.5-mile race track at the Autobahn Country Club in Joliet, Ill. All I could do was smile.
Patel, a 42-year-old doctor from Crown Point who also races on the side, prefers this kind of country club over one which offers much less exciting perks, such as golf.
“It has its risks, but so does every medical procedure I perform,” he explained. “Just like being a doctor, it involves a lot of thinking and mental preparation beforehand.”
Patel is medical director of endovascular and interventional radiology at Saint Margaret Mercy Hospitals in Hammond and Dyer, as well as a practicing partner at Radiology Imaging Consultants.
The Munster High School graduate has been in practice for seven years, but his passion in life is taking practice laps in his racecar and competing against other drivers.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would ever have this kind of opportunity,” he told me.
He’s successful, too, recently placing third at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis., and then qualifying first in another race, nabbing another invite to a national championship race later this month. In fact, he’s placed high in most of his races through the years with several first-place finishes against pro drivers.
“Porsches are the toughest car to drive because the engine is in the rear, not the front,” said Patel, who also drives a Porsche on his personal time back and forth to hospitals.
Drinking gasoline primed him?
Like many young boys, Patel always dreamed of being a racecar driver. His passion may have been ignited when he accidentally drank some gasoline, he joked.
During treks with his father to the Indianapolis 500, the granddaddy of car races, he would reveal this dream to his dad.
“My father would tell me, ‘We are not the Andrettis or Rahalls. You are a first
generation Indian in this country, and I have no idea how to get you in a
race car.”
Patel found a way after first watching every car race he could while growing up, and then into his college and medical school years. While working in his radiology residency, he happened to meet a high ranking member of the BMW Car Club in a grocery store parking lot.
“At the time I had an older BMW M3 that I had modified a little,” Patel recalled.
“Nice car” the car club member told Patel, before inviting him to a racecar track for a practice run.
After taking just one lap around the track with the guy, Patel’s amateurish and choppy driving made his passenger sick to his stomach.
“He took the wheel and showed me the right way to drive the track while me and my ego sat in the passengers seat,” Patel said.
But later that day, Patel was told he had natural talent and that’s all that his ego needed to hear. It’s been green lights, crash-course learning, and checkered flags ever since.
Later, while then driving a Porsche GT3, a track car made for the street, serendipity again made a pit stop in Patel’s life and he was offered help from a pro driver.
“When I was informed it was going to be Wolf Henzler, a former Porsche Supercup and American Le Mans champion as well as a Le Mans race winner, I was over-the-moon excited, a little bit nervous, as well as intimidated.”
“He told me driving a racecar is like a ballet dancer – you must have rhythm as well as
smoothness and finesse,” said Patel, who started getting serious about racecar driving. “At the end of the day, he sat me down a told me that I had what it takes to go straight into racing. I was shocked and figured he was (just) being nice.”
But others in the industry also encouraged Patel, including Mark Boden, owner of Fall-Line Motorsports, which owns a garage at the Autobahn Country Club in Joliet.
“He said I should take it to the next level and start racing,” said Patel, who first received permission from his boss, wife Nancy.
With a new racecar built by Fall-Line, Patel attended racing school to get his needed
licenses and then signed up for his first regional races. He hasn’t looked in his life’s rearview mirror ever since.
Medical practice lapse for practice laps?
Driving a racecar mirrors Patel’s medical practice, he said.
“When taking care of an emergency or a sick patient, everything around you is moving fast,” explained. “You have to slow things down and react with your subconscious mind while at the same time being able to think on the conscious level. Calm, cool and
collected in order to manage the patient and everything around you.”
He feels the same during races, where his surroundings slow down and his sponsorships have sped up, including from WeatherTech, Fall-Line Motorsports, and the Porsche Exchange.
“My big goal is to turn semi-pro or pro and race the ultimate race, which for me is the 24 hours of Daytona,” he said.
But he has no dreamy plans of leaving the medical industry or compromising time at his practice for more practice laps and high-profile races.
The Porsche GT3 racecar that we drove last weekend would cost about $200,000 to rebuild, Patel noted before I crawled in to its front seat. The car sports NASCAR-style roll bars and a cage built for safety, if not comfort.
“It’s not made to drive slowly,” he reminded me while attaching the steering wheel, which hung from the roof otherwise.
It’s detachable to allow him to get into his seat, or to get out of his car after a crash.
“Crash?” I asked jokingly before making several high-speed, hard-braking, hairpin turns around the weaving track.
When we returned to the parking lot, I had only one reaction, which was captured on my digital recorder: “Holy (expletive)!”
To watch a video of Patel and his racecar in action on that day, visit my Facebook page.
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