This message was edited on
July 01, 2014 at
06:15:58 PM by STARS Racing
Travis Young Profile
By: Rich Murray
In pit areas at racetracks all across the country, one might see a plethora of massive, expensive haulers and young drivers whose sole focus is on making it to the next ladder of racing. Sure, Travis Young would love to move to the highest echelons of racing if given the opportunity, but that is not what drives him to success. Travis is a true wheelman who will drive anything, anywhere, at anytime. His weekdays aren’t filled with glitz and glamour, but consist of extensive time spent in the garage preparing one, and sometimes two, cars for the racing weekend. Besides being a true blue collar team, most of all, the Travis Young Racing team is about family.
The racing game is not new to the Young family. Travis comes from a family of champion racers, notably his father, Norm, and his older brother Ted. In fact, in a single year at the ½ mile, winding road course of Whiteland Raceway Park, located south of Indianapolis, Ted took the Junior Karting title while his father, Norm, took the Senior Karting Championship. The spectacular achievement is made even more impressive with the fact that each won their respective series titles driving the same kart!
Travis, a lifelong resident of Franklin, Indiana, was born on December 9, 1984 to his parents, Norm and Pam. That same year also marked the beginning of the Young family’s entrance into the midget racing wars when Norm made his debut behind the wheel of a car nicknamed the “White Elephant” at the Indianapolis Speedrome. Norm’s successful 21-year midget racing career came to an end in 2004 when he decided to hang up the helmet for good. Along the way, he garnered eight USAC Regional Midget series victories and a third place finish in the point standings in 1999.
Unlike many of the other kids around him, young Travis did not dream of being a professional baseball, basketball, or football player. Travis’s idols were seven-time NASCAR champion Dale Earnhardt and perennial Indianapolis Speedrome midget racing front-runners Michael Lang, John Sluss, and Larry Fritz. However, it was watching his biggest racing hero, his dad, who was his biggest influence.
“My main idol is my dad,” Travis said. “I know what he had to do everyday to be successful and I got the hard working mentality from him.”
While watching his father compete on a weekly basis at places like Indianapolis Raceway Park, Anderson Speedway, and the Indianapolis Speedrome, Travis was chomping at the bit to get his chance behind the wheel of a midget someday.
“My Dad is who got me into midget racing,” Travis said. “With him already racing, I knew it was what I wanted to do. Racing was all I cared about sport-wise growing up. It’s all I have ever really wanted to do.”
At the age of 10, Travis finally got that chance and began racing a quarter midget. Though his first season only consisted of eight races, it was a very successful beginning to his career. Travis took the checkered flag in four of those eight races, but it was his battle to get that first “legal” win that still stands out to him.
“We were disqualified because the tech guy, who was also the parts guy, sold us the wrong restrictor plate,” Travis said. “We got the correct sized restrictor plate (1/64 of an inch smaller) and won the next race from dead last. I passed the whole field in two and half laps instead of three and a half laps like I did the week prior.”
From the quarter midgets, Travis made the jump into a Junior Legends car in 1997. That year, he nearly scored a rare perfect season at the Indianapolis Speedrome by scoring 19 wins in the 20 races on the schedule while comfortably taking home the season championship. Next season, Travis moved up to the Kenyon Midget series at the age of 14. Once again, he had a pleasant debut in the car at the Indianapolis Speedrome, taking home the first place trophy. Though he only ran the second half of the season in the Kenyon Midget series, while also pulling double duty in the Legends Car, Travis racked up four wins in the midget. Two years later, Travis moved up to a full-size midget. In his third race, he was able to prove to not only his competitors, but himself, that he would be a force to reckon with in the years to come.
“I started on the tail with the rest of the rookies. There were 20 cars, if I remember right. I drove all the way up to third and was all over second place when we took the checkered,” Travis said. “It was a very good night and I showed that I one day could be just as good as my dad.”
After several years of winning races and knocking on the door for the point title in the USAC Regional Midget series, Travis was finally able to pull off the feat in 2008 while also scoring three wins on the season. The most memorable race of Travis’s career came late in that season when he won on the same night he clinched the championship. The race was the Inaugural Alex Pruett Memorial at Anderson Speedway.
“I got to share the win with Alex's family and friends that came,” Travis said. “That, to me, was the most special night. To this day, that trophy is my most prized trophy in the house.”
Four years later, the hard work would pay off again with multiple championships. This time, it was in the Kenyon Midget series where he collected the both the Indianapolis Speedrome track championship as well as the Kenyon Midget series overall title.
While maintaining one type of racecar is enough for most small, family-run teams, Travis has simultaneously dove into the commitment of running two full series schedules with the Kenyon Midget series and the STARS National Midget series. Although the two cars in each series look relatively the same to the untrained eye, they are not exactly alike. The main disparity between the two cars lies in the engine compartment. Despite the horsepower differences, Travis described how the transition between the two cars for him is not as difficult as it may seem.
“It is not a hard transition,” Travis explains. “The biggest difference is the horsepower. In the Kenyon Midget, you have to drive a lot harder into the corners to keep your momentum up. If you kill your momentum, you will probably get passed. With the National Midget, you have a lot more horsepower and you can use that to your advantage. The National Midget is more stable during the race. You have to drive the Kenyon Midget so hard without power steering that it will heat up the right rear tire if you’re too loose.”
The life of a blue-collar racer at the local level is not glamorous by any means. The hours that a team spends at the track are merely a fraction of the time that is spent on preparing the car for raceday. As the old adage goes, “races are won at the shop.” This sentiment definitely rings true for the Travis Young Racing team.
After each Saturday night race at Grundy County Speedway, it’s a nearly four hour drive back home to Franklin, Indiana for the team. It’s usually about 5 a.m. Sunday morning by the time they make it back home, unload their car and equipment off of the trailer, and go to bed. As for the time the members of the team wake up, that depends on how the night before went. If it was a good night with nothing on the car torn up, it might be a short, four-hour work day. If the car needs extensive repairs, it could turn into an eight hour work day.
Despite the devotion to the sport of racing, all those long hours in the shop don’t pay the bills. Travis has a full-time job on the weekdays from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. as a parts and service director at Matlock Ford in Franklin, Indiana. While Travis is at work, his dad, who also serves as his crew chief, checks over the car for any repairs that need to be made. Each evening when he gets home from work, Travis’s mind is set on getting the car as ready as it can possibly be for the upcoming race. He will spend every night at the shop working on the car until 10 p.m. At that point, he will head home to eat dinner before getting some sleep. On the next day, it is the same routine. On the night before the race, Travis will do what many associate with stick-and-ball sport coaches: review videotape from the previous race.
“I may watch the video five times to see every mistake I made to learn from them and see in which situations I should have been more aggressive or less aggressive,” Travis said.
A full-season of racing and all the hours that it takes to field two competitive cars in two different racing series can wreak havoc on your racing equipment and your bank account. Other than “finding time to mow the grass,” as Travis jokes, the most difficult part about racing to him is staying healthy for an entire season.
“The hardest part is keeping your body in shape. It takes a beating during the season and you have to take care of it.
The race team is a truly family-oriented operation. Travis might get all the accolades for winning races and championships, but he is very appreciative of the roles that each person in his family takes that allow his race team to be as successful as it is.
“My mom is the one who keeps everyone fed and keeps every one grounded whether we are excited or upset,” Travis said. “My fiancée, Tasha, has pushed me to do better and critiques everything I do that she thinks I can do better. I am better for it. My nephew, Trevor, basically does anything we tell him to do. He is in training. He still has his rookie stripe.”
Travis is a man who values hard work and family over everything else. He is a man whose idols include the working-class heroes of the short tracks. He is a man whose most sentimental victory in the early part of his career was a night at the Indianapolis Speedrome in which he won the Kenyon Midget feature on the same night that his father won the USAC Regional Midget feature. He is a man who can tell you the number of hours and hard work it takes to put a successful racecar on the track each weekend. Most of all, Travis Young is a racer.
**EXTRA TIDBITS**
**What is your favorite track?
The Indianapolis Speedrome and Anderson Speedway
**What do you think about racing with STARS?
I think STARS has a very good and competitive series. There are normally 8-10 cars and sometimes more that can win the feature. It is very difficult to be on top or towards the top every week. I also think they are trying to keep costs down which is a big help to us.
**Best racer you've ever competed against?
Dave Darland. I wasn't racing him for position exactly, but we were running 6th at Anderson in a USAC National Midget race and Jerry Coons, Jr. was right in front of me. Dave Darland was in front of him and the three of us were nose-to-tail for almost the whole 50 lap race.
**Any interesting hobbies away from the track?
I have an RC Sprint car I play with a little during the winter. I do like to go camping and fishing when I get time. I do love my racing games on the Play Station when I'm not working out during the winter.
**Last book you read?
The last book would have been about the life of Dale Earnhardt.
**Last movie you've seen?
The newest Captain America
**Favorite food?
Anything with BBQ on it, but mostly BBQ chicken.
**Favorite midnight snack?
Cinnamon Toast Crunch with Nestle Chocolate milk.
**Favorite TV Show?
Well, there is a couple. The Walking Dead, Falling Skies, The Last Ship. My all-time favorite is Stargate.
**Favorite sports teams?
Indianapolis Colts, Indiana Pacers, and Boston Red Sox
**Any pets?
2 dogs: Buddy and Hoosier
2 cats: Tagen and Talon
**Favorite band/type of music? First CD/Cassette/Vinyl record you ever purchased?
Blink 182 is my favorite band. Blink 182, don't remember the name of it but I was 16 I believe.
**If you weren't a racecar driver, what would you want to be?
If I was anything and I never had racing I would have probably been a pilot.
**Travis Young would like to thank his sponsors 3 Wide Life, Big T's Auto Parts, Indiana Finest Wrecker, and BG Products.
*STARS Website: www.shorttrackauto.com
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*STARS Twitter: www.twitter.com/shorttrackauto
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