After he unexpectedly won one of karting’s biggest races at Daytona, Nicholas Byrd and his father picked up a Legend car on the way back home. Now Byrd is hoping for another milestone victory, his first win in the Save A Lot American All-Star Series by PPM Racing Products. He’ll have two chances this weekend, one at Ponderosa Speedway and the other at a track he’s quite familiar with, Lawrenceburg Speedway.
That race at Daytona represented a turning point in Byrd’s racing career. The event draws heavy hitters from all around the country, with hundreds of karts in the pit area.
“We usually went south to get our teeth kicked in,” Nicholas, of Cincinnati, Ohio, said. “We qualified around 18th, 7 seconds off the leader. Then we started in the back, drove up through the field and won the thing. It’s kind of unbelievable.”
On the way back home, his father, Cliff, picked up a Legend car. From there, Nicholas moved into sport mods, modifieds and now for the past 2 years, crate late models. The experience of driving a variety of cars has taught the 17-year-old quite a bit about driving technique.
“In the modified and Legend car, you need to have throttle control,” Nicholas said. “In the late models, you have to be precise with the steering inputs.”
Nicholas has won in late models, but not in American All-Stars competition, yet. He came close last year at Lawrenceburg Speedway, a track he grew up going to.
“I was running somewhere in the top five, battling for the lead,” Nicholas said. “I got a little too excited and thought there was going to be a gap that would open up, and it didn’t open up. I’ve learned a lot about patience since then.”
With hopefully more patience underneath him now, Nicholas Byrd looks to try again this weekend. The Save A Lot American All-Star Series presented by PPM Racing Products first visits Ponderosa Speedway on Friday, August 14. The series then wraps up the doubleheader weekend at Lawrenceburg Speedway on Saturday, August 15. Unlike back during his karting days at Daytona, Nicholas enters the weekend with a bit more confidence, with high hopes of earning that first series win.
Outside Groove Note of Transparency: Outside Groove is a sponsor of the American All-Star Series. The American All-Star Series paid for the production of this article. The content is not subject to the approval of the American All-Star Series.
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.
