Catching up with Dave Rezendes

Long after his NASCAR racing days, former Craftsman Truck Series winner Dave Rezendes continues to be as busy as ever.

Rezendes competed in the NASCAR Xfinity and Truck Series throughout the 1990s, racking up Top-10 finishes and several wins in the Truck Series.

In his life after racing and moving back home from North Carolina, Rezendes has stayed busy in the family business; a construction company in Massachusetts, with his brothers, sisters, and father. Despite a recent knee injury that required surgery, Rezendes has enjoyed operating the controls with excavators and loaders.

Rezendes’ dad is still involved in the company business at 91. In fact, his father is his role model and believes he got his work ethic from him.

“At 91, he’s still in the office at 5 a.m., Monday through Friday, greeting everybody, trying to still help with the business, it’s what keeps him going,” Rezendes said of his dad. 

Rezendes said his father beat throat cancer.

“You just can’t knock this guy down, he’s Superman actually,” he added. “I really had a good role model.”

Rezendes’ wife, Lorrie, has worked as a hospice nurse for decades, and after working in management, now co-owns a hospice care company with Dave.

Over the years working with the family business, Rezendes has worked with new employees, and some know about his past, racing in NASCAR.

“I don’t talk about it too much,” Rezendes said. “I miss it, I do miss it. 

“When you have a team, everyone pulls together, everybody works hard, and you accomplish things. That was a lot of fun.”

Rezendes said he helps a friend and his son from time-to-time who races locally. He might make an appearance at the local racetrack once a year, but that’s it.

“I just can’t get that wrapped up in it, because it’ll suck you right back in,” Rezendes said. 

Rezendes doesn’t follow NASCAR closely present day, but stays in touch with his former NASCAR Xfinity Series competitor and recent Hall-of-Fame short-lister Randy LaJoie.

Yet, Rezendes does look back fondly at his time in NASCAR.

Rezendes drove for his own team from 1988 to 1994 in the NASCAR Xfinity Series (Busch Grand National Series) before teaming up with Geoff Bodine in 1995 in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.

After racing a partial schedule in the Truck Series in 1995, Rezendes competed for the 1996 championship in the series racing for Geoff Bodine Racing.

Out of the gate in 1996, Rezendes won his first NASCAR national touring race, winning at Homestead-Miami Speedway and taking the early-season points lead. Rezendes posted two more wins; at Nashville and Sonoma, ultimately finishing sixth in points.

However, Rezendes recalls a race at Bristol that season, early in the year.

Rezendes and the team worked on a new a-frame for the racetruck and it was fast.

“We should have won the race,” Rezendes said. “That’s one of the races where politics got in the way. That happened a couple times, where I should have won the race.

“We were second, and we’re trying to get by (race winner Rick Carelli), and NASCAR told my crew chief, ‘If Dave touches him, we’re gonna black flag him.’

“Touched him. Bristol’s a heck of a place. To come back from something that just wouldn’t do anything, to almost winning the race, says a lot for the team. Something like that sticks out, where we had quite a bit of adversity from the start, but because we didn’t give up, we kept working hard at it, that sticks out in my head.”

Unfortunately, a lack of sponsorship cut their efforts short only two races into 1997, leaving Rezendes without a ride.

Rezendes raced out a majority of the Truck Series schedule with Charles Hardy, finishing the year with Tom Gloy. 

The partnership with Gloy carried into the first four races of 1998, but Rezendes said he was released because he wasn’t mirroring the performance of his races with Bodine’s team.

Rezendes raced a one-off deal at Texas Motor Speedway later that season, driving for Mike Skinner in a No. 5 Chevrolet entry.

Rezendes finished eighth in the race, ahead of his replacement Dennis Setzer in the Tom Gloy-owned machine in 14th.

“I went by them like they were tied to a pole down the straightaway,” Rezendes said with a laugh. “I wonder if that made them scratch their head. It was nice to go by them.”

After another one-off Bristol with Jim Smith, Rezendes’ returned to race select starts for multiple teams in the Busch Grand National Series, racing his last event at Charlotte in October 1998.

Rezendes, 38 at the time, never raced again in NASCAR.

Rezendes said he didn’t feel pressure to try to “stick it out” in racing after opportunities were running out, because he didn’t have family ties to racing.

After the racing days were over, Rezendes moved back to Massachusetts.

Now at 65 years old, when he looks back at his career, Rezendes said his hot-headedness may have held back opportunities.

“I never did learn to control that well enough to satisfy owners, or even sponsors,” Rezendes said. “People listen to you on the radio, and I did lose my temper a little bit, and I think that kept me from going further.”

“I could say I might regret not doing more, but like I say, I think being a hot-head put a chokehold on how far I could go.”

Rezendes got to return to a NASCAR race weekend at Sonoma in 2022, when the Truck Series raced again at the California road course.

Rezendes joined past Sonoma winners Ron Hornaday Jr., Joe Ruttman, and Boris Said as grand marshals for the Truck Race.

While he enjoyed the time at the track, Rezendes does not frequent NASCAR race weekends.

“If you can’t race, why watch it? It just reminds me of what you miss,” Rezendes said.

Rezendes says he was lucky to have the opportunities he got while he was a NASCAR competitor.

“I wish I could’ve gone a little farther, but it is what it is,” he said. “I was lucky enough to be able to go down there, do some racing, get hooked up with someone like Geoff, who gave me everything we needed to succeed. What more can you ask for?

“I know it was only a short period, but that’s the way it goes.”

Rezendes enjoys spending time with his family; which includes seven children and six grandkids. 

“Grandkids are like a present, that last for the rest of your life,” Rezendes said. “It’s awesome to have grandkids. Kids are wonderful; grandkids, you have fun with them, you play with them, and you give them back.”

In his free time, Rezendes’ hobbies include snowmobiling, riding motorcycle, working on his boat and working on his 1938 Ford pickup truck that needs a new chassis at his shop.