Jesse Landis has four sportsman wins at Grandview Speedway. For three of those four, there’s a common thread: They occurred when his wife, Ana, was pregnant.
“He wins when I am pregnant,” joked Ana in victory lane.
When Landis won last Saturday, he celebrated with Ana and his son, Owen, who was in the womb when Landis won his first race in 2021.
“It was a special win on Saturday because it was the first time Owen stayed up for an entire race,” Landis, of Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania, said. “He was so excited. I picked him up and gave him the checkered flag. He was yelling, ‘We won. We won.’ As a dad, it was a great moment for me to always remember.”
Landis has raced for eight years, and Ana has been there since the beginning, marrying six years ago.
“It’s just me and her doing the weekly maintenance our car,” said Landis. “At the track, it’s my dad, Ray, and brother, Andrew, plus a friend who will help out. It helps when you have a family — we live less than 10 minutes away. I call Ana and let her know how we are doing, and she and Owen can get down to the track for the feature.”
The only time Jesse Landis won when Ana wasn’t pregnant? The Firecracker 40, one of Grandview’s premier events of the year.
“Ana woke Owen up and rushed down to the track,” Landis said. “I pulled into victory lane thinking, ‘I wish my wife and son were here to share this’. Then, I looked up, and there was Owen and Ana. It pays to live nearby.”
It’s too early to tell if Owen wants to be a race car driver like his father, but there are indications that he might.
“That will be his decision in a couple of years,” said Landis. “All he tells me now is that he wants a yellow car with the number 1 on it, even though our car is red and numbered 973.”
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.
