MONROE -Work or play, Kris and Mindy Harriss are practically inseparable.
The husband and wife from Lake Stevens own their own business – they are the only employees – and race cars together in the mini-stock division at Evergreen Speedway.
“(Racing) is a hobby we both like,” Mindy Harriss said while sitting next to the couples’ cars in the pit area of the Monroe track. “It’s a good hobby for a husband and wife to have together.”
On this particular evening, the couple raced together in a heat, then moved up together to the feature event. She started inside in the third row; he was right behind her in the fourth. Kris Harriss finished fifth, Mindy Harriss a few spots back.
Each is comfortable on the track with the other.
“I trust her more than anybody. I trust that she’ll hold her groove,” Kris Harriss said. “I can get right close to her and she’s not going to run me off the track.”
“He gives me this much room,” Mindy Harriss said with a laugh, holding her thumb and forefinger a few inches apart.
Has their status as a couple affected how they race?
“One year he was running for a championship and I was leading the main event,” Mindy Harriss said. “I didn’t know if I should let him win, but then I thought of the points and knew he had it anyway.
“I won my first main that night.”
“Long story short, she didn’t let me by,” Kris Harriss added. “I did knock her sideways afterwards – it was a congratulations tap for winning.”
Mindy and Kris Harriss fit in well with the relaxed atmosphere of the mini-stock division. Two steps down from the top-tier super stocks, mini-stock drivers freely share tools, spare parts and racing advice.
“As a competitor, it’s really fun seeing these guys running together,” driver Drew Harthorn said. “They don’t run into people, those cars don’t have a dent on them.”
The couple – he’s 32, she’s 27 – met through mutual friends and were married in 2000. Both began racing a year later, driving hornets – basically a standard four-cylinder car with the doors welded or chained shut.
They moved up in classes until 2006 when Mindy Harriss began racing mini-stocks. Kris Harriss joined her in the mini-stock division this season.
“I had no interest at all in racing, her dad got her started doing the hornets,” Kris Harriss said. “But I got hooked on it. I drove her (hornet) one time and I had to get one. And once you get one, you want to make a better one, a faster one.”
They started their business, Flowmaster Gutters, the same year they married. Kris Harris had worked installing house gutters and Mindy Harris cleaning houses, but they were frustrated with working for someone else.
“It made more sense to work for ourselves, we set our own schedule,” Kris Harriss said. “I like to spend a lot more time on a job – where I was working we were expected to bang out three houses a day.”
Kris Harriss didn’t know much about cars before the couple started racing, but he learned fast. The desire to do things right and his experience working with sheet-metal gutters helped Kris Harriss put together two cars that are easy to spot in the mini-stock field.
“Best-looking cars in their division,” super-stock driver Shane Harding said of Mindy’s orange-and-white No. 20 and Kris’ blue-and-white No. 12.
The color and number are deliberate for Mindy Harriss – she calls NASCAR’s Tony Stewart her favorite driver that she’s not married to – but Kris Harriss just liked the color and number combination.
The couple’s home in Lake Stevens has a large shop – the most important factor in their decision to buy it – where they work on their cars.
Home is surprisingly where they are likely to part ways, but not for long. He works in the garage on the cars; she often helps. She keeps the house clean and spends time in the garden, but says he “weeds about three times a year.”
They watch movies, enjoyed fishing “before we started racing, now we haven’t been but once in three years,” Kris Harriss said ruefully, and have been known to break into song in the garage.
Bob Emery, Mindy Harriss’ uncle, said he was working on his hornet in the Harriss’ shop recently when a song came on the radio.
“The next thing I know he’s singing along and so is she,” Emery said. “Belting it out, singing ‘No, no, no.’”
What was that song?
“‘Rehab’ (by Amy Winehouse),” Mindy Harriss said. “Kris sings a really good Gretchen Wilson, too.”
Kris Harriss took his wife’s good-natured teasing with a smile and a shake of the head.
The couple was sitting with a group of mini-stock drivers and friends as the final race of the night wound down on Evergreen’s figure-eight track.
The group talked about that night’s race, working on cars, plans for future races. Kris sat on the hood of Mindy’s car; she stood a few feet away.
Outside of their time on the track – when they weren’t running side-by-side – it may have been the farthest apart the couple had been all day.
Or any day.
Said Mindy: “He’s my best friend.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
