BILLINGS – Most parents cannot imagine watching their child drive down a track at over 200 miles an hour.
But Robert Tehle looked forward to it from the time his daughter, Casey, was little.
“As a dad doing this, I wanted my kid in that car,” said Tehle. “I wanted her to do this and enjoy it.”
But it wasn’t that easy.
“Then my heart being broken that she doesn’t want to…but it was my fault because the car wasn’t right.”
Tehle said the clutch on the car was sticky, but once it was fixed, there was no going back.
“We got that taken care of and she had her first race, I believe she won her second or third race out…after that she was hooked,” he said.
Since then, Robert, Casey, and racing have been inseparable.
During racing season, the father-daughter duo travel together in their RV to different races.
“Something special that I get to go places with my dad and that’s like our father-daughter time before we jump into this huge race or track or wherever we’re going,” said Casey.
Casey, now 23, has managed to come a long way in racing, and her and her dad both had lofty goals going into the racing season this year.
Hers was to be the number one qualifier in the Quick 8 Class as the fastest car every weekend, and to win the overall Quick 8 points championship, something no other Montana woman had accomplished.
For Robert, it was to set the track record at the eighth-mile strip in Malta with a time of under four seconds.
MTN’s Brandon Sullivan followed their journey as they worked to accomplish something no other Montanans ever had.
Watch the video above to see their story.
Reporting by Brandon Sullivan for MTN News
