Hobby stock driver Austin Jahnz didn’t realize what he created when he constructed his makeshift sun visor out of three colors of tape. That is until fans of German ancestry started cheering for him during the Spring Nationals at Beatrice Speedway.
“I borrowed some yellow tape from a guy last year,” Jahnz, of Lewisville, Minnesota, said. “I had some black tape for the top of my sunscreen, red for the middle, and used the yellow for its transparency.”
While Jahnz didn’t intend to make a nod to the Schwarz-Rot-Gold of Germany, he couldn’t help to think of his late grandfather, Harold, who hailed from Deutschland. Jahnz certainly recognizes his German roots.
“I’m stubborn like the German I am,” Jahnz said. “I’ve stuck with the same Dominator by Nick Wroten hobby stock since 2021, even though I rolled it over and bent it six ways to Sunday over the past five seasons.”
He put his stubbornness aside, though, while racing at Central Arizona Raceway earlier this year.
“I parked next to Dillon Richards and met him for the first time,” Jahnz said. “After the first night he approached me with springs in both hands and asked, ‘Are you sick of beating yourself up? Put these in your car and you will win. When you do, promise me you will put a new body on that thing and race at Beatrice.’ When we won, we told him we would honor his request.”
Jahnz won not once, but three times in the Grand Canyon State. Good to his word, he hauled his hobby stock, complete with new body, to Beatrice Speedway for the Spring Nationals. Richards smiled when seeing the car, and reserved a spot for him in the pits.
At Beatrice Speedway, Austin Jahnz earned a pair of fifth-place finishes among 40 entries for the spring special. A champion at Fairmont Raceway, he hopes to “go anywhere and race more than 40 events.” Still only March, Jahnz already has 12 events under his belt, and has finished just once outside the top five. Perhaps there’s more to those sun visor’s colors. Call it good luck or maybe it’s just his late German grandfather looking over him.
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.
