Joe Olenick

Joseph Alan "Joe" Olenick (born January 15, 1991) is an American race car in the TM Master Cup series currently driving for Hodges-Walter Racing. Olenick gained a reputation as an extremely adaptable driver early in his career; during the 2012 and 2013 seasons, he entered races in no fewer than six separate series.

Olenick entered the series in 2012 as a one-off entry into the 2012 Round of Decatur, driving a car for fellow Connecticut native Ryan Matthews. He ran in the ASCC that year, finishing third in points with two wins. His campaign in TM Lights the following season was less successful, with the highlight being a pole at Piqua Fairgrounds. Despite this, Team Saar USA tapped Olenick to drive the #23 Budweiser Saar in the TM Master Cup Series in 2014. After five seasons with the team, Olenick moved to Hodges-Walter Racing for 2019, replacing three-time series champion Adrien Devereux, who departed for Mitchell & Sons Racing.

Early Career
Olenick starting running local short tracks almost immediately after getting his driver's license in 2007. He quickly excelled at Thompson Speedway, winning two races in 2008 in the DARE Stock late model series before moving to the higher classes that ran the track in 2008. He also began to run well at Lime Rock Park, a track where a number of TM Master Cup drivers from the Northeast had run. He gained a reputation as a methodical-but-unshakeable driver after a bad qualifying effort at Bridgeport Speedway in New Jersey; Olenick, having started 29th in a 32-car field, slowly picked his way through traffic and finished third, managing to lead 25 laps along the way.

Olenick caught the attention of multiple national teams in 2009 after winning the track championships at both Lime Rock Park and Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park, a feat he would repeat in 2010 and 2011 (he would add Waterford Speedbowl to his championship list in 2011 as well).

TM Master Cup Series
Olenick gained the attention of journeyman driver Ryan Matthews back in 2011; at the time, Matthews was running part-time in the Vaughn Stock Car Championship. Matthews tapped Olenick to run special events for Matthews Motorsports in 2012 after he was signed to run for Majestic Motorsports full-time. The duo first attempted the 2012 Karjala Grand Prix; however, Olenick was not approved to run the race and the team did not attempt to qualify.

Olenick would next attempt the 2012 Round of Indianapolis, but was unable to advance past the qualifying race.

Their third attempt, the 2012 Round of Decatur, went much better, as he made it into the main field and was able to bring his Matthews Aspira home in 23rd place.

American Stock Car Championship
Olenick was signed to run the 2012 VSCC season for Team CTR; however, the series folded shortly before the round of Clairmont was run. Olenick and the team, not content to wait for a new league to form entered the ASCC, where he was listed as the primary driver of the #5 Bolden, which was sponsored by Bridgeport Milling Machines.

Olenick's 2012 season included two wins (at Rockingham and Atlanta) and a berth in the championship Chase. Due to his early season win, Olenick was seeded 3rd. He was mathematically able to win the championship in Atlanta, but lost out to Dan Richards of Ocean Motorsports.

Olenick announced that he would consider a return to the ASCC for 2013 with Team CTR. The team moved to Lenard despite running very well with Bolden, and they were looking at expanding to a two-car operation. Olenick also requested a number change from #5 to #26, to honor the victims of the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

Ultimately, Olenick decided against returning to the ASCC, and stepped aside for driver Mickey Smith.

Dash Cup
Olenick ran the 2012 Spa GP alongside teammate Jess Zander, but was taken out in an early wreck caused by title contender Patrick Arceneau. Later in the season, he was seen testing an unpainted Lenard R20, signaling a change of manufacturer for Team CTR.

ARLA
Olenick ran the Mini Indy 500, but was wrecked out early and finished last.

Olenick would later attempt to make the 2012 Rockford 200 but was taken out in an early wreck during his qualifying race.

TM Lights
Olenick competed for the 2013 TM Lights championship driving a Lenard after securing backing from the TARDIS Group. Despite having a strong season with Team CTR in the ASCC, the team wasn't as able to translate their success to TM Lights. The lone highlight of the year was a pole at Piqua Fairgrounds. The team would return to late model racing after the season, and Olenick would move on to the TM Master Cup Series.

ARLA
Olenick ran 12 races for George Martin Motorsports in the 2013 ARLA Elite Series; he managed 6 top tens and a 50th place points finish. He won the pole at the ARLA Tornado Alley Truck Series race at Lime Rock park that same season.

Dash Cup
Olenick made limited appearances in Dash Cup for 2013. He made the 2013 EuroSpeedway GP, but was involved in a wreck and failed to finish. He was originally only scheduled to run at Spa and EuroSpeedway, but the death of Tyson Lautenschlager at Texas Motor Speedway meant Olenick was moved to the part-time role that Lautenschlager was signed to fill.

TM Master Cup Series
During the 2013 season, Team Saar USA announced its return to the TM Master Cup series grid; during the same announcement, Olenick was confirmed as one of the team's drivers. Team Saar USA allowed Olenick to choose his number; Olenick, who had run with #23 in TM Lights, ARLA, and Dash Cup (as well as many lower series), chose to continue using the #23 in TM Master Cup.

Despite his relative inexperience, Olenick began to be seen as a driver who could outperform his equipment; the 2014 entries by Team Saar USA were seen as being slow and underdeveloped, something that both team's drivers worked hard to overcome. Despite this, Olenick's season is probably best remembered for his multiple clashes with Adrien Devereux; Devereux wrecked Olenick in back-to-back race weekends at Darlington Raceway and Road Gatineau, leading to an intense war of words through the press.

FARC Elite Series
Olenick made his return to the rechristened FARC Elite Series in 2018 FARC Season at the 2018 Smash Beer Oktoberfest Nationals. Olenick, driving a Saar for Quinnipiac Motorsports, won his quarterfinal and semifinal races in addition to the pole. Olenick was involved in an early wreck and was unable to finish the race, but still managed to score enough points to finish 34th on the year off of one race weekend.

Personal Life
Olenick completed a master's degree in mechanical engineering in 2014, making him one of the few TM Master Cup series drivers with an advanced college degree. That same year, he moved to metro Detroit in 2014 to be closer to the Team Saar USA race shop; he currently lives in the city of Royal Oak.

Olenick married former Dash Cup and current RROL NOMAD driver Jess Zander in November 2017; the two had dated for eight years prior to getting married. Jess stepped away from driving in 2018 and announced the couple was expecting. Their first child, a boy named Elliott, was born that February. Jess returned to driving the same year.

He is an avid fan of the St. Louis Cardinals, Baltimore Ravens, and ACF Fiorentina.

Adrien Devereux
Olenick has a notoriously frosty relationship with fellow driver Adrien Devereux. Despite appearing friendly on the track during the early part of the 2014 season, Olenick took exception to being wrecked in consecutive events by Devereux. In particular, Olenick called Devereux out for not reaching out to talk about the wreck, and instead issuing a press release. Since the incident, Olenick described the pair's relationship as "nonexistent outside of the race track".

Ryan Matthews
Olenick has made it clear that he considers Ryan Matthews to be responsible for his career in TM Master Cup. "Make no mistake about it, if Ryan Matthews didn't take a chance on me, I wouldn't be racing here today. I'm eternally grateful for him and everything he's done for me."

Olenick was deeply affected by the death of Ryan's wife, Tiffany, at the 2012 Hannmore World Championships.

Frank Azure
Despite all appearances, Olenick and Frank Azure both contend that they have a great deal of respect for one another, and consider each other friends. They both admit to being hot-headed and sarcastic, which they believe makes it seem like they're much more negative toward each other than they really are.

Leonid Roderick
Olenick has stated that he considers Roderick to be the greatest driver to have raced in the TM Master Cup series, and stated that he considered it a privilege to race against him in the series for five seasons.

Public Persona
Olenick is known for his dislike of interviews; he frequently answers questions very bluntly and to-the-point, unless he finds them particularly interesting. He stated during an interview on Hot Ones in 2018 that the reason for this was "the way racing media never lets you gather your thoughts after anything. It's always 'get the hot take as soon as the guy gets his helmet off.' If I just got wrecked, or the engine blew up, give me space to breathe. And don't ask me the same damn question every time."

He is also known for having a very dry and sarcastic sense of humor. On the second incident with Devereux in 2014, when asked if his car was having a problem (as Devereux claimed), Olenick responded that his car "didn't have anything wrong until Adrien sent me spinning across the race track. I'd say that's where my day went south."

Safety
"All of us involved in the racing community need to demand that things start getting better, because they can't get much worse."

- Joe Olenick, reacting to the death of Tiffany Matthews, the seventh death in a major racing series since 2011.[]

"I'm not going to continue to get wrecked and have the officials just give some slap-on-the-wrist time penalty. Racing is dangerous and if drivers are going to continue to take people out, the officials need to start handing out disqualifications and points penalties."

- Joe Olenick after being wrecked during consecutive race weekends by Adrien Devereux.[]

Olenick has been long viewed as an advocate for driver safety in motorsports. He had been known in the garage to express his displeasure with certain tracks' safety standards privately, but spoke publicly regarding motorsports safety in 2012, after five drivers were killed in the 2012 Hannmore World Championships. A broken wrist during a crash in Portland caused Olenick to change his driving style to put less stress on his left arm, a move that he said he felt gave him better control in the end.

ARLA Elite Series

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ASCC

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Dash Cup

 * Italics indicate season-in-progress