Young drivers working their way up ranks

Through my travels I have met some young promising drivers. On my visit to Rockingham, I had a pleasant surprise. I ran into Jesse Smith and his family. I met Jesse twelve years ago when he was just 6 years old and a quarter midget race driver. I was following the exploits of my grandson (in-law) Justin Allgaier, who was also racing quarter midgets. What drew me to Jesse was the fact that he had a national sponsor for his racer – Hormel Spam. I called him the Spam man, although he struggled to reach a height of 48 inches at the time.
Justin’s parents were good friends of the Smith’s and they introduced me to his mom June, his dad Chuck, and his brother Zeke. Being from the St. Louis area, they were friends with the Wallace family, especially Mike Wallace who to this day still advises Jesse on his racing career.
Jesse started to ride and race motorcycles at the tender age of 3. At age 5, he started his quarter midget career and won numerous national championships in JSCA (Junior Sprint Cars of America). At age 9 Jesse moved up to racing Bandoleros. In this series, Jesse won multiple races on both road courses and ovals including the national championship in 2001. When Smith turned 12 he then moved up to racing legend cars in which he would once again win multiple races. In 2002, Jesse won the national dirt championships and then the pavement championship soon followed in 2003. Jesse then moved up to racing late models at the age of 15 in the ASA Series and became the youngest ever to win an ASA Late Model Series event. When he turned 16, Jesse began a successful Late Model racing career, earning the 2006 ASA Late Model northern division national championship.
While at Daytona, Justin’s dad introduced Jesse to the Jones Group Racing team which was testing an ARCA car. Jesse tested the car for them and they liked what they saw, signing him up to run a number of ARCA races this year. In his first two ARCA races this year, Jesse finished 5th in Iowa and 3rd in Kansas. Jesse Smith was a relatively unknown when he arrived in Iowa but he quickly started turning heads. He was impressive in Kansas, leading in the late stages when he spun his tires on a restart. Two cars sped by him relegating Jesse to a third place showing. Jesse said ‘The shifting is all new to me. The ASA cars don’t shift, so I wasn’t used to it. I’m not concerned though; it’ll come with more time on the track.’.
Jesse graduated high school last December and is currently taking college courses. His plans call for making it to the big time in racing, but he will take his time gaining on-track experience, confidence in himself, and also the respect of his fellow competitors. He plans to run ARCA and Late Models for a couple more years and then hopes to be picked up in NASCAR.
He did say that whoever he races for has to be a competitive team with the capability of racing with the leaders.
Also at Rockingham, I met a promising new driver named Joey Logano. When Mark Martin was contemplating retirement, he suggested 15-year-old Logano to take over his ride. Roush did not sign him and Joe Gibbs immediately signed Logano to a three year development driver contract. Logano won his ARCA debut at Rockingham and has since turned 18, the minimum age for NASCAR. He made his Nationwide debut at Dover in the #20 Gibbs car and finished a respectable 6th. Keep an eye on this talented driver. He will race at the Nashville Super Speedway this weekend.