Mobile machine shop keeps racers on the track

Bob Field works on Honda rider Josh Grant's radiator.

Aug. 8 - You've probably never heard of them, but the Field family has been at the AMA Amateur Motocross Championships at the Loretta Lynn Ranch for each of the event's 21 years, and many racers owe their victories to their hard work and expertise.

Bob and Jeanette Field run Competition Machine & Weld, a business that keeps them on the road more than 300 days a year, traveling from race to race around the country, repairing everything from aluminum-bodied shock absorbers to the tractors that plow the track. They work all kinds of racing events, from 24-hour endurance car racing at Daytona to motorcycle drag races, and they never miss the motocross nationals at Loretta Lynn's.

Bob Field (right) talks with Team Honda's Dave Thomforde about some radiator work.

Jeanette Field helps a track worker.

"Last year, we even went down to the old steel bridge in Western Town (an attraction at the Loretta Lynn Ranch) and fixed that," said Jeanette Field.

Bob Field also built the starting gate used in all the motos at the Loretta Lynn Ranch and the bleachers the fans sit on.

Following various racing circuits with his fully equipped mobile welding and machine shop has been a full-time job since 1995, and was a weekend job for 20 years before that.

"I found I liked the work at the race track better than I did rebuilding engines at the shop day after day," Field said.

Of all the racers he's seen pass through in 21 years, Ricky Carmichael is one of Field's favorites.

And another customer is always waiting in the wings.

"I remember working on Ricky's peewee and getting it going," Field said. "One year, I fixed their trailer so they could get home. They were always good people. I'm really glad to see them doing well because they had to do it the hard way."

But there's little time to recall years past. The line forms outside his trailer. Forks to be straightened. Pipes to be welded. Heads to be milled. It's all a normal weekend's worth of work for the mobile machine shop.