Sure, A.J. Hicks now has four championships (2021-’23, ’25) in the Rick Hendrick City Chevrolet; Chevrolet Performance AAS Weekly Series Presented by PPM Racing Products. And yes, he seems nearly unbeatable at tracks near his Grayson, Kentucky, home. However, there was a time when Hicks was nowhere close to being even mediocre on track.
“Most people don’t remember this, but I sucked,” Hicks said. “I went two to three years just hoping to make a race. That’s what people don’t remember. They don’t remember the growing pains it took to get here.”
Hicks started racing at age 21, competing in a super late model. He grew up watching his father, Terry, race. However, it was another hometown racer, a legendary dirt late model driver, that taught Hicks a lot.
“Jackie Boggs lived in my hometown,” Hicks said. “I went to his shop and soaked up as much information as I could. A lot of people underestimated how smart the man was.”
His biggest lesson, however, wasn’t a trick setup, though.
“A lot of people just go home, wash their car and let it sit in the garage all week,” Hicks said. “That’s not how you get better.”
Hicks became a sponge for information and applied it to his program. It earned him four weekly championships in the American All-Star Series. Last year, Hicks took on a new challenge: running the American All-Star Series tour. There he earned rookie of the year honors, but it also taught him a lot.
“Going on the tour, getting your guts kicked in, it just makes you so much better,” Hicks said. “I usually unload my car with a baseline setup wherever I go [locally], and tweak from there. When you unload [at a new track] and in hot laps you’re six or seven tenths slower than everybody else, you’ve got to do something. That’s where I learned a lot.”
A.J. Hicks applied those lessons he learned on the road to the tracks back home. It became particularly helpful at a recently reopened dirt oval, 201 Speedway. It’s a track where many racers chase setup and track conditions.
“201 is a fine line,” Hicks said. “You got to find the right line, and it changes a lot. It could be middle, bottom or top.”
Hicks seemed to find that line. He won three out of four times there. He also scored eight wins at Willard Speedway. All in all, it was another masterful season for a driver who makes winning seemingly easy in his hometown area. But Hicks reminds you, he wasn’t an overnight success, his track record is the culmination of lessons learned over the course of a career.
The Outside Groove Executive Editor has covered motorsports since 2000. His many awards include the 2019 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Jim Hunter Writer of the Year and the 2013 Russ Catlin Award for Excellence in Motorsports Journalism.
