The Wirth brothers don’t work on the same race team anymore, and that’s probably a good thing.
Ask either Travis or Ryan Wirth about the time they shared the same Funny Car, and both will tell you the same story. They’re competitive, stubborn, and convinced there’s usually a better way to do something. Those qualities helped carry them from two kids wandering around Cordova Dragway to respected crew members in the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series. They also made working side by side a little more interesting than either of them expected.
Today, Travis helps prepare Ron Capps’ Funny Car while Ryan is part of Tony Stewart Racing’s Top Fuel operation. Different organizations, different crew chiefs, and different race cars now separate the brothers, but neither has forgotten where the journey started.
“I mean, honestly, it’s been great having us both out here doing this,” Travis said. “It’s something that probably neither one of us probably would have thought was possible, I guess. But it’s been kind of a dream come true, really, for I’m sure, for both of us, being out here doing what we’re doing.”
“It was more my brother’s dream,” Ryan admitted. “He’s the one that really started looking into it and how to become a crew guy. It perked my eye up to, ‘Well, I guess this is possible.'”
Whether they own up to it or not, there’s a combination of sibling rivalry mixed with love and respect.
“I don’t think we really keep track of wins or anything like that,” Travis added. “I’m always rooting for him when they’re doing good. And I’m sure he’s doing the same too. It’s always been fun seeing his success. We always try to one-up each other, I guess. It’s just natural.”
Ryan laughed and pointed out that the early years of their sibling rivalry posed some challenges for the younger of the two, as you might imagine.
“It was pretty high [intensity],” Ryan admitted. “Because growing up, he got everything. I had to fight for it.”
The arguments weren’t over race cars but over video games, the family pool table, and all the little competitions that seem important when you’re a kid. Looking back, both laugh about it now.
“There was definitely some times we would go at each other,” he said. “But honestly, he’s bigger than me now. He’s like 6-foot-5, and I’m like 6-foot-1. I eventually took a step back and saw the younger brother’s bigger than me now.”
Their world revolved around Cordova Dragway. Weekend trips to the track weren’t special occasions; it was what the Wirth family did.
“We always went to the racetrack when we were kids,” Ryan said. “Whether it was mud drag racing or then when we got a little bit older, it was drag racing. We lived next to a drag strip and grew up at one. Cordova, Illinois.
Ryan still laughs about getting into the track.
“My parents snuck us into the trunk to get into the gate,” Ryan said with a laugh. “It was me, my brother, and my cousin. We’d sneak in. I’m pretty sure admission for us as kids was free anyway because it was 12 and under, but it was just a fun fact of trying to sneak in somewhere.”
For Travis, Cordova eventually became much more than a place to watch races. It became his first opportunity.
Needing gas money while still in high school, he took a part-time job at the dragstrip working concessions before gradually taking on more responsibility. Eventually, he became one of the starters, placing him within arm’s reach of the race cars he had spent years watching from behind the guardrail.
That job also introduced him to Scott and Laura Gardner.
Scott Gardner knew Travis wanted more than a summer job. They knew he wanted to build a career in drag racing, and they also happened to know someone who was usually one of the biggest attractions at Cordova’s World Series of Drag Racing.
Tim Wilkerson.
As Travis attended technical school and worked as a dealership mechanic, Scott Gardner never forgot what the young starter wanted to do with his life.
“Scott knew this was the ultimate goal,” Travis said. “He hooked me up with Tim, who was looking for a guy. I interviewed with him in 2012, and that’s kind of how I got my foot in the door. I guess the rest is history.”
Ryan watched his brother leave for Wilkerson’s team and realized those jobs weren’t reserved for someone else.
“No, I could not,” Ryan said when asked if he ever imagined this life as a kid. “Back then, no. It’s definitely a dream.”
Then he watched his brother make it real. Ryan didn’t waste much time following the same path.
A year after Travis joined Tim Wilkerson’s Funny Car team, Ryan found himself climbing onto the same race car. The brothers had reached the destination they once thought belonged only to the people they watched from the grandstands at Cordova.
It didn’t take long to discover that sharing the same dream was easier than sharing the same race car.
“When Travis first started with Wilkerson, I followed the next year and we worked a couple years together,” Ryan said. “We had our moments, probably because we’re so competitive.”
The storyline remains consistent between the siblings.
“I’ll be honest, we do kind of butt heads when we were on the same team,” he said. “I think we’re both kind of… we both kind of think the same. I guess we are brothers.”
Ask either brother about those days now, and neither makes much of them. Put two competitive mechanics on the same race car, each convinced his idea will make it quicker, and disagreements are almost inevitable.
“I don’t know if I’d want to work together again, at least on the same car,” Travis admitted. “We definitely butted heads a little bit when we were together. But we still love each other. We’re always calling each other, or he’s coming over to visit. There’s no bad blood there by any means.”
Today they work for different organizations.
Travis continued building his résumé through John Force Racing before joining Ron Capps Motorsports. Ryan’s journey eventually led him to Tony Stewart Racing, where he became part of Mike Green’s Top Fuel team after helping Justin Ashley’s operation win races.
Today, when Capps unloads in the Funny Car pits, and Tony Stewart’s Top Fuel dragster rolls out of its trailer, the brothers are still chasing the same thing they chased as kids at Cordova.
Ryan isn’t shy about where he hopes the sport takes him next. He hopes one day to be a crew chief,
“I just want to go as far as I can in the sport and figure it out,” Ryan said. “It’s definitely been a journey to learn and follow people and follow the right people as well. Especially with Mike Green, Joe Barlam, and the crew chiefs that I’ve worked under throughout the years.”
One continues learning under Dean “Guido” Antonelli and the Ron Capps organization. The other studies alongside one of the sport’s most respected crew chiefs, Green, understand that every race weekend is another classroom.
Their parents, Todd and Pam Wirth, have watched both journeys unfold from much farther away than the trunk of the family car parked outside the gates at Cordova.
“They’re very proud,” Ryan said.
Somewhere along the way, those sons became professionals. Looking back, Travis measures the journey differently than championships or trophies. They’re not what is most important.
“I think the biggest takeaway would just be that we followed our dream of doing this,” Travis said. “Something that we probably thought growing up didn’t think would even be possible. Then we got the opportunity, and we took it.
“It’s led to doing things that we probably would have never been able to do or never even thought we could accomplish, really. Just being on a car alone was the dream, and then to go on and win races, win championships and just being with the drivers and the crew chiefs we’ve been through.
“Growing up, we idolized John Force like a lot of people do. When we were able to work for John Force, I think that was the ultimate dream come true.”
And, just look at them now.
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