LOUDON, N.H. -- With the eardrum-shattering screeching of tires and race engines surrounding him in the garage area at New Hampshire International Speedway, Scott Zipadelli speaks of the surreal serenity of hunting trips to western Canada.

Chasing the high prestige of a regular gig in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series, Ward Burton continues to escape into the natural world whenever there's time in a busy racing schedule.

Richard Childress created a racing empire, fielding cars for the late Dale Earnhardt, a seven-time Cup series champion, while working big game hunts across the globe into his schedule. He has three drivers in today's Lenox Industrial Tools 300 at NHIS -- including Daytona 500 winner Kevin Harvick, 4-time NHIS winner Jeff Burton and Clint Bowyer.

For all of these men, and for countless others working at all levels of NASCAR, being an outdoorsman takes on added challenges. Finding the time to spend in the woods or on a lake, helping preserve the same opportunities for others and, perhaps most importantly, ensuring that world exists for the next generation top the lengthy to-do list.

"It used to be a hobby, but it's more of a lifestyle now," said Zipadelli, an East Haddam, Conn., native and crew chief for the Wood Brothers Racing Busch Series car driven by Kelly Bires. "When we were kids my dad took my brother and I trout fishing and hunting all the time. It's something you look forward to -- getting up early with your dad, having breakfast together, going hunting all day. There's just nothing like it.

"It's more the adventure part of it, the camaraderie. All the pictures, the laughing, having fun. Sleeping in a cabin for a week, not shaving, roughing it a little bit. Life's so short, you've got to spend time with your friends and family, you know?"

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While their immense work and travel schedules don't always allow them to be enjoying nature themselves, they are often paving roads into the great outdoors for others, particularly youngsters.

Childress donates hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to charities such as the National Wild Turkey Federation and Ducks Unlimited, raising money via ticket sales to his Richard Childress Racing Museum in Welcome, N.C. -- which features an entire wing dedicated to wildlife and conservation efforts. Burton's Ward Burton Wildlife Foundation promotes not only wildlife protection but also educational programs for youth in Virginia.

"A lot of our conservation work we do is for kids, to keep them involved," Childress said. "We have to have them to keep our hunting heritage and the outdoors alive."

And then there's Zipadelli, the younger brother of Greg Zipadelli -- 2-time Nextel Cup championship crew chief for Tony Stewart at Joe Gibbs Racing. Scott Zipadelli and longtime friend Chris Tralli recently created the Outdoors For Life charity, which raises money for Catch A Dream.

Catch A Dream is the outdoorsman's answer to Make-A-Wish, fulfilling the desires of children with life-threatening illnesses by sending them on hunting and fishing excursions. In its first week of fundraising, Outdoors For Life has raised close to $20,000 -- enough to fulfill the wishes of roughly a half-dozen children.

"This is kind of the same thing (as Make-A-Wish), but it's just a little more adventurous thing," Zipadelli said. "Not everybody's (pro- ) hunting, but when you look at the video that Catch A Dream sent us -- you see it's about the kids. That's what kids want to do -- they want to go out and explore, they want to go on a hunting trip with their dad. It's pretty neat. It's good stuff."

Given his NASCAR connections -- he himself worked for 6 years at Joe Gibbs Racing, with a stint as the car chief on the No. 18 -- Zipadelli can bring some high-profile attention to his charity work. That work also keeps him grounded in an increasingly self-important world of auto racing.

"You don't want to raise money to help a hundred kids, because you hope to God there's not a hundred kids that need it," Zipadelli said. "But in reality, there really is. We're trying to do as much as we can.

"We're not doing anything spectacular here. We're not curing cancer, and we're not curing diabetes. We're racing cars. The big picture in life is to do what you can and enjoy what you do, then go home and be with your families.

"What we do really isn't all that important, so if you can use what you do to help somebody -- if my job can help me raise money for the charity -- than that's the good out of what I do. But I'm not doing anything good for the world by racing cars really. I'm being realistic. I'm not knocking the sport, I'm just being realistic."

Introducing children to the notion of protection and conservation, says Childress, is paramount. He's seen it with his own teen-aged grandsons, now 15 and 17 years old. They've been hunting for a decade already.

"They know safety, they know responsibility, they know conservation," Childress said. "They realize the conservation is important. It's pretty neat to see a 14-year-old (on a hunt) say, 'I've got a trophy one bigger than that already. Let's leave that one for someone else.'"

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It takes leading a double-life to work in a NASCAR garage for your day job and recreate in the outdoors in your spare time.

Zipadelli repeatedly reminds his employees to keep things in perspective.

"In this sport, in this job, I have people who ask me how I can go sit in a tree for eight hours in Alberta when it's 20-below," said Zipadelli, who takes one week each year with his family to hunt in Alberta, Canada at the end of the NASCAR season in November. "But you know what? There's no cell phones, no horns honking. There's nothing. You just watch coyotes, elk, moose, deer and bear, mountain lions. You don't think about anything else except decompressing."

That, Zipadelli said, allows him to remain true to himself.

"The first couple of years in this sport, you evolve and you change all the time" he said. "You go do something like that, and you become yourself again. I come back from my hunting trip in Alberta with my friends and family, and I'm myself again and ready to relax for the winter a little bit."

Childress finds a way to tie it all together, so much so that RCR employees have come to dread his absence.

"When I get the chance to get outdoors, it gives me an opportunity to clear my mind and come back with better ideas, new ideas for racing," Childress said. "Most of my people don't like to see me go hunting, because I come back and want to change everything."

Travis Barrett -- 621-5648

tbarrett@centralmaine.com