Kentucky’s Thunder Mountain Speedway announced a mentor program for 2023. It will pair teenagers (13–17 years old) with a driver to learn the basics of racing.
“One of our track workers mentioned that it would be a good idea have a program to introduce local youths to racing,” said Lori Barton, who operates the Corbin, Kentucky, track with her husband, Dennis. “This is not a program for young people whose parents or uncles or aunts race. This is a program for young people who don’t have the means or connections to be part of a race team.”
The track publicized the program on the track’s Facebook page last Friday, December 16.
“We are looking for kids who have an interest in the racing industry and who are good listeners that are anxious to learn,” Barton posted. “This will not be all fun and games…you must stay with your mentor and/or his race team throughout the race night and we encourage you to make arrangements to go to [the mentor’s] garage…to help get the car ready for race nights.”
Thunder Mountain Speedway has already received a dozen applications.
“The applicants will be screened, and must be mentally and physically able to work on a race car,” said Barton. “This is a hands-on position — changing tires, fueling a race car— and if the candidates arrange to do so they can report to the garages of their mentors on weeknights to prepare the cars for the weekend.”
Barton will select the drivers and match the candidates with them. Each one of the track’s five divisions with have a mentor — late models, modifieds, front-wheel-drives, hobby stocks, and KDRA super stocks.
“I am going over the bios of the teens who applied, and I will send them a questionnaire next,” Barton said. “I am looking for teens who need something in their lives. The goal is to get them off the couch, to stop looking at their phones, and to have something real to participate in.”
Thunder Mountain Speedway opens its 2023 season on April 1. It will start awarding points on May 6.
(For more on the track, read “Thunder Mountain Speedway to Debut Labor Day”.)
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
