Veteran Mike Hammerle enters this weekend’s action leading the UMP DirtCar Late Model national points standings, but he knows his run in the sun will probably be short-lived. So the 60-year-old grandfather from St. Charles, Mo., is going to enjoy every minute of his stint in the catbird’s seat — just like he relishes every lap he turns on the racetrack.

A short-track racer for 35 years and counting, Hammerle is a classic low-buck driver who pours his heart and soul into the sport he loves. “It’s fun to be on top of the points,” smiled the likable Hammerle, who moved to the national points lead on the strength of his circuit-leading 14 starts through May 6 (the next-busiest driver has run 12 races). “Maybe I can stay there for a few weeks.”

Hammerle realizes he’s racing on borrowed time, of course. Even though he plans to enter more than 70 UMP events this season and the national title will be determined using a driver’s best 40 finishes, most of his racing will come in weekly shows at small ovals where he can be competitive with his bare-bones budget. He doesn’t have the finances to follow the UMP Summernationals, which provides its regulars a chance to pile up bonus points toward the national title thanks to the tour’s strong car counts.

“They’ll definitely catch me during the Summernationals,” Hammerle said of his current pursuers in the standings. “They’ll get those maximum bonus points for the car counts.” But Hammerle is fine with his ultimate fate. He’s honored simply to spend some time in the spotlight as the points leader, however short his stay there might be.

“I thought I might get the points lead this week because I got three races in last weekend and a lot of guys had their races rained out,” said Hammerle, whose weekend was highlighted by a May 2 feature win at Belle-Clair Speedway in Belleville, Ill. “Last year I got the points lead once, too, because I ran a lot of races early in the season, so I was hoping I’d get the lead again this year for a little while.”

It’s certainly a neat story to see the points paced by a hard-working journeyman, a home-based welder who is the epitome of a UMP Weekend Warrior. There’s no frills about any part of his race team, from the ramp-truck he uses to haul his car to the aged, battle-scarred No. 16H machines he campaigns.

Hammerle has three cars in his arsenal, but the newest of the trio is five years old. His favorite mount is a homebuilt piece he constructed in 2000 (it’s the dirt Late Model he put in victory lane last Saturday at Belle-Clair); he also has a 2000 GRT car and a 2003 Rayburn chassis — although “the chassis builders won’t claim them anymore because I’ve cut ‘em up and changed them all around,” quipped Hammerle, whose small group of sponsors is headed by his crew member Mike Hickman’s King Edward’s Fried Chicken stores. (“When we get to the track everybody always wants to know if we have chicken to feed them,” said Hammerle.)

The motors in Hammerle’s equipment are built to his limited budget by Rolla (Mo.) Competition Engines. He estimated that his powerplants produce “probably 100 horsepower less than the big guys” because he has to go for durability in order to race as often as he does — and the tight bullrings he frequents don’t require big power anyway.

Last year Hammerle focused his weekly efforts on the two smallest tracks under the UMP banner – Belle-Clair and Macon (Ill.) Speedway, both one-fifth-mile ovals. He won the points championship at Macon and finished a close second at Belle-Clair, helping him to a seventh-place finish in the 2007 UMP DIRTcar national points standings.

This season Hammerle plans to again run Belle-Clair regularly on Friday nights — he already has a fourth-place finish to go along with his win there — but he’s not committed to a Saturday track. It’s a 155-mile haul to Macon from his home outside St. Louis, so with rising gas prices he’s backing off weekly trips there. The always penny-pinching driver said he can save $50 in gas by racing closer to home at I-57/I-64 Raceway in Mount Vernon, Ill. (where he has a top finish of fifth in two starts this season), so he’ll likely split his Saturdays between Macon, Mount Vernon and perhaps others tracks now-and-then. Hammerle will always find somewhere to race. You can count on that.

“I’m 60, but you need to keep practicing,” he joked when asked why he’s still so active behind the wheel.

Hammerle launched his racing career 35 years ago, competing in the sportsman division at tracks near his home. Three years later he began a decade-long stint in the Late Model division, then he bounced between a center-steer Modified class very similar to the Northeast’s big-block modifieds (he competed in big-block mod events in Florida and Texas during the late ‘80s) and the emerging UMP modified division before returning to dirt Late Models, which he’s run for the last decade.

According to Hammerle’s best recollections, he’s won more than 300 features in various divisions and more than 20 points championships. He’s finished as high as second in the UMP Late Model points and has three fifth-place finishes since 2000. It’s been a long, fun ride for Hammerle, and he’s shown no signs of slowing down.

Hammerle has even outlasted his wife Linda, who rarely attends her husband’s races these days, preferring to spend more time with the couple’s grandchildren. “I guess I burnt her out,” said a smiling Hammerle. “She went with me everywhere for 25 years, but she was always a nervous wreck when she watched me race and she finally decided she didn’t want to go anymore.”

It’s a pretty good bet that Hammerle will never leave the pit area behind. He even dreams of a way to stay in the game after he finally hangs up his helmet sometime well into his senior-citizen years.

“I’m just gonna do it as long as I can. I still enjoy it too much to stop. Maybe I’ll get one of my grandkids driving some day,” he added with a twinkle in his eyes. “I’ve got a grandson who’s 3 years old, so maybe I can hold out and keep racing until he’s ready to take over driving my car.”