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acegear
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Joined: 22 Oct 2004
Posts: 973
Location: Enumclaw, WA
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 Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2004 6:37 pm Post subject: USAC Driver: Jay Drake |
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From the time Jay was born, he was involved in racing in some form. His dad, 3 uncles and aunt all raced quarter midgets as kids, and when they grew older, 2 of his uncles as well as his father raced TQ midgets for a time.
Eventually Jay's dad and one of his uncles raced full midgets on the west coast. Jay's dad was most heavily involved as he manufactured and maintained his race cars out of his garage in their home in southern California. This proved to be an excellent opportunity for Jay to learn the ins & outs of maintaining, building, and preparing race cars for race days.
When Jay was 8 years old, his dad brought home a quarter midget. This is where Jay got his start in auto racing. For only about one year, Jay would get to go race the quarter midget on weekends when his dad was not racing. Then he continued to help out on his dads race cars.
A few years later, while in high school, Jay began racing go karts. He ran a variety of dirt track as well as pavement road course races.
After racing karts for a few years, Jay was able to put together enough equipment to build his first TQ midget. He went out for his first race and crashed the car. At that point, Jay's dad was just about finished with his racing career and decided to concentrate on helping Jay full time with his. They rebuilt the car and went on to win the USAC TQ championship the first two seasons of racing with them.
After having such success with the TQ's, they decided to build a full Midget. They went on to win rookie of the year with the USAC western states series.
Jay was then able to start getting noticed by other car owners and started picking up rides with some of the top western teams. Soon he started winning big races.
He won the western states midget championship in 1996 driving for Steve Beneto for the dirt races and for his dad for the pavement races. He also got the opportunity to race in Australia and New Zealand a few different times. He also got to do a few sprint car races in that time frame.
In 1997, Jay received the opportunity to relocate to the Midwest to compete in USAC's national midget series for Pete Willoughby and Keith Kunz. Since then, Jay has been a full time racer, living in Indianapolis, racing in the three major USAC national series.
In 2003 Jay has landed rides with what some consider the best teams USAC has to offer. Driving a midget co-owned by Tony Stewart and Keith Kunz with backing by Mopar, Vital Express, Keco coatings, and Sander Engineering. A sprint car owned by Keith Kunz with backing by Vital Express, Mopar, American Race Tire, and Sander Engineering. And a silver crown car co-owned by Tony Stewart and George Snider with backing by Mopar.
With a pair of runner up finishes in the midget and the sprint car championships to his credit, his goal this year is to break through and win at least one, if not three, championships.
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