Fire up your PC, go online to www.jeffstrunk.com and see what comes up. You'll find a sharp-looking home page for Harring Motorsports, home for Jeff Strunk, one of the winningest drivers in motorsports. Click on "results" and you'll see that Strunk, who began racing Go-Karts at age 9, amassed more than 200 wins in them alone.

Strunk, 30, was a devil in dirt-track Sprint cars, and now all but dominates the NASCAR Winston Racing Series, driving "modified" cars on dirt tracks up and down the eastern seaboard. He also drives the team's W900L transporter. This is an exciting but "affordable" form of racing, according to team owner Keith Harring, for whom trucking is a passion and racing is a "vacation."

Harring, 40, is the son of a career trucker and operates K.L. Harring Transportation & Warehousing. As a boy he lost an eye in an accident while playing baseball. The injury also caused blood clots on his brain; physicians cleared those up, but warned him to stay away from sports that could lead to head impacts. So he raced motorcycles instead, "like that wouldn't get my head hit."

"Gypsy" defends trucking's honor

He raced motorcycles as a teenager, which helps explain his love of the sport, and worked as a "gypsy" independent trucker as a young adult. He said he got serious about the business when someone told him "trucking is a dishonorable profession."

That again sparked his contrary nature, and he left the road and went knocking on doors for shipper customers. He built his company into a class fleet of 35 tractors and 70 trailers, specializing in expedited freight. He has a loyal "nucleus" of drivers who seldom leave; many have been with him for 10 to 15 years.

Rockwell International (now Meritor Automotive) was the first shipper to give him a chance and is still with him. Emphasis on quality on-time service also kept every customer he ever signed up, except those he chose to walk away from, Harring said.

A sideline to freight carriage is the warehousing of raw materials for production lines; his trucks feed the lines with virtually 100% on-time deliveries that are more reliable than what manufacturers could do when managing their own transportation.

Building the business was a lot of work, but also fun, Harring said. Driving, too, "must be fun" and satisfying. So he gets drivers involved in equipment spec'ing and runs only top-line late-model Kenworth W900Ls and T2000s with Big Power Cummins N14Es. He trades most after about three years, and one fast-rolling husband-and-wife team gets a new T2 every nine months.

Harring likes the T2's streamlining and professionalism it seems to instill in drivers. But he's also drawn to the classic looks of the W9L. His first new tractor was an '80 W900 Golden Nugget which now has 3 million miles on the clock. He buys his KWs from Motor Truck Equipment Co., owned by long-time family friend Gary Mitchell in Carlisle, Pa.

Truck and track cross paths

Trucking and racing are intertwined in Harring's life. His father, a career truck driver and life-long racing fan, took him to see a race when Keith was only 3. His father was diagnosed with cancer in 1991, "My dad is a god to me," Harring said, "and I panicked because I thought I was going to lose him."

His dad had always wanted to see the Daytona 500, and Harring figured that getting him there, and into the garage area, would boost his father's spirits and help him fight the cancer. Through some contacts, Harring met NASCAR competitors Mike, Rusty and Kenny Wallace. He supplied them with a transporter truck and they got his dad to Daytona. His father won the cancer battle.

W9s dominate road, track

Today, the cars and shop tools are carried in a pair of transporters pulled by Kenworth W900Ls with James Bond paint schemes. The dealership and Cummins help sponsor his racing cars, which he numbers "W9." His crews usually take two cars, a primary and a backup, to a race, so only one W9 is on a track at a time. Harring has two Big Block Modified cars, powered by Chevy 454 V-8s stroked to 467 cubic inches, as far as league rules allow. He has four Small Block cars, whose Chevy 350s are stroked to 358 ci. Other mods to the engines boost their output to 850 hp for the Big Blocks and 525 hp for the Small Blocks.

A Modified car must weigh at least 2,500 pounds, and that's about what Harring's weigh. The high power-to-weight ratio obviously makes them fly, and with Jeff Strunk at the wheel they easily reach 150 mph on the straights.

"The best way to describe the Big Blocks is Ôviolent,'" Harring said. "That's how it feels" as you go around the track. "It's all with your right foot (on the accelerator), your right butt cheek and your head. It's all feel, in the seat of your pants and in your head, in this sport." Dirt track driving is less treacherous than asphalt because dirt allows a driver to find more than one "groove."

Racer hauls his own car

Modified Dirt racing is not dominated by the huge, high-monied teams as in other types of high-profile racing, Harring said. So to him and the league's fans, it's a more basic, even honest, form of racing. It also helps his trucking business because he takes drivers and customers to races and they love it.

Harring said Strunk not only drives the W9s but also works on them. He has a CDL and often drives one of the transporters. "He's a phenomenal driver," with a long list of wins, championships and individual track awards, "and just a fine man. He lives in my house Ñ what more can I say about him?" Harring said.

Official accolades have also gone to Strunk's support crew, and to Harring's insistence on "doing it right." In 1998, during Super Dirt Week at the New York State Fairgrounds, judges gave Strunk the Hard Charger award and honored the W9 and the men behind it as Best Appearing Car and Crew.