Sam Schmidt says ‘Bachelor’ Arie moved pretty fast on track

Arie Luyendyk Jr. (ABC via AP)

When it was learned the Golden Knights wouldn't be available for Stiga table hockey games until next season, Las Vegan Jeff Hoose and his daughters took matters into their own hands. They hand-painted the Swedish national team players that came with the game to look like the Golden Knights. (Courtesy: Jeff Hoose)

Not being a fan of reality television, it came as a surprise to discover that Arie Luyendyk’s son had become “The Bachelor,” though auto racing enthusiasts probably are the only ones who refer to Arie Luyendyk Jr. in that manner.

It likewise came as a surprise to learn his bio on the “The Bachelor” website claimed Arie’s kid had “a career as a respected Formula One racer.” Never happened. Arie Jr. completed 54 laps in the 2006 Indianapolis 500, and that was his only major auto race.

He did drive in seven races for Henderson’s Sam Schmidt in the 2004 Indy Lights series.

He finished second once and third once.

But there’s an expression in auto racing that the only guy you have to beat is your teammate. Arie Jr.’s teammate that year, a Brazilian named Thiago Medeiros, won six of 12 races and the series championship driving for Schmidt.

Sam Schmidt said Luyendyk Jr. had some talent behind the wheel. Not just as much as his old man.

“I never met anybody better on an oval,” Schmidt said of Arie Luyendyk Sr., the “Flying Dutchman” and two-time Indy 500 winner who still holds the single-lap record at the Brickyard of 237.498 mph. And Schmidt said he never met a better person off the track than The Bachelor’s old man, his teammate during the 1999 season before Schmidt suffered terrible injuries in a testing crash.

“When I was in rehab for six months in St. Louis, he was the only driver who came to visit me regularly,” Schmidt said. “I will always have a special place in my heart for Arie Sr.”

Schmidt said he was certain the son was just as considerate as his father regardless of what he might have shown on television.

“I’m sure he put on a show for TV,” Schmidt said, adding that Arie Jr. and fiancee Lauren Burnham attended the IndyCar season opener in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Did Arie Luyendyk Jr. really fall in love on TV?

Perhaps we should check back in 10 years.

“Or five months,” Sam Schmidt said.

0:03

— After recently writing about the Golden Knights not being available for Stiga table hockey games until next season, I heard from local table hockey enthusiast Jeff Hoose who, with an assist from his daughters, hand-painted the Swedish national team players that come with the game to look like the Golden Knights.

My favorite touch: They gave miniature Marc-Andre Fleury jersey No. 702 and the last name “Vegas.” The other players are named for Hoose’s wife and kids and are numbered for the year they were born.

Wrote the artist in an email: “My daughters Isabella and Charlotte helped with this project. Emma (now 3) contributed by not eating any of the small parts.”

— Add one to the list of NCAA Tournament teams local basketball fans could have seen play in Las Vegas this season.

The Amherst women, who went 33-0 for the second consecutive season to win their third NCAA Division III championship, won two games at South Point Arena during a Christmas tournament. The Mammoths, formerly known as the Lord Jeffs, are coached by G.P. Gromacki, whose career record is 491-62 for a winning percentage of .888 — second only to Connecticut’s Geno Auriemma among women’s coaches.

“I grew up nine miles from campus,” Gromacki told me in 2011 during another trip to the South Point after being asked why he didn’t pursue a job on a higher NCAA rung. “We have very good academics.”

— When we were kids, mom would take us to Toys R Us on our birthdays. She gave us a $10 bill to spend, which usually would balloon to $20 by the time the checkout counter was reached.

This explains my hulking edition (2,348 pages, no pictures) of “The Baseball Encyclopedia,” which was Baseball-Reference.com for kids of my era. It only goes up to 1969, because I got my copy in 1970 at Toys R Us when I was 13.

The people lined up at my local Toys R Us to buy Slinkys at a liquidation sale Friday probably were not aware of the store’s gravitational pull on the youth of 1970, or that Choo-Choo Coleman’s real name was Clarence, that he was born in Orlando, Florida, on Aug. 25, 1937, that he appeared in 55 games for the expansion New York Mets of 1962 hitting .250 with a slugging percentage of .441.

Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.