17-year-old finds success on the track and sets his sights on NASCAR

By JAN HOGAN
VIEW STAFF WRITER

Now that he’s out of high school, Dusty Davis is on track to his dream career. The 17-year-old Summerlin resident’s goal is to compete in NASCAR races, and he’s already making a name for himself.

On April 24, Davis won his race at the half-mile Toyota Speedway in Irwindale, Calif., a feat that earned him the title as the youngest driver to win a Super Late Model race at the track.

Toyota Speedway hosted the Pepsi One NASCAR Super Late Model Series on June 19. Davis and his Ford Fusion teammate, Justin Johnson, 24, competed in the Super Late Model class and together won both ends of the 15-car, twin-40-lap main events before an estimated crowd of 3,000. Johnson won the first, and Davis won the second.

But it is his win at the Mother’s Day Celebration race on May 8 at that same track that sticks out in his mind.

“Everyone had said, ‘He can’t win, he can’t win,’ ” Davis said. “All the doubters couldn’t say anything anymore.”

His two first-place wins that day were redemption after nearly a year of racing with a new vehicle. His old one caught fire last April at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway’s Bullring when another driver clipped him and a spark hit some fluid. Davis got out unharmed, but his race car was totaled. He had to start with another one. Tweaking that vehicle to be as good as the trashed car meant trial and error. It also meant lagging in the field.

“It took a whole year of struggling to get it up to where the other one was,” he said.

Now that the new car is up to speed, so to speak, he’s doing well in races again.

His mother, Sandy, attends every race. She said it’s hard to see her child racing at such speeds.

“I am known to pace at the top of the grandstands and to hide my eyes at times,” she said.

Davis packs a sinewy 125 pounds onto his 5-foot-5-inch frame. It’s an advantage in his sport.

“Bigger guys have more upper body weight,” he said. “But in racing, you want the weight to be as low as you can go.”

He compared the two body types to a high-profile SUV versus a low-to-the-ground sports car. It can make a difference when you’re racing as fast as 130 mph.

Davis has 75 career wins in his eight years of racing. They include capturing the Grand National Championship at age 13 in the Formula Y Junior division for 13- to 16-year-olds at the World Karting Association event in Santa Maria, Calif.

Davis won the 2004 World Karting Association Junior 1 Comer, Junior 1 Yamaha and the 2002 Junior Class 1 Championship with the Las Vegas Kart Club.

He said he looks up to NASCAR drivers Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, but it’s Kurt Busch who has given him advice over the years. The main thing he imparted: don’t let little things rattle you.

“You have to ‘look at the big picture,’ ” Davis said.

Steven Acor is the owner and chief operating officer of Vision Airlines, Davis’ main sponsor. He said Davis has the mind-set necessary for racing.

“He is mature beyond his years in handling the car and the pressures of competition, and he is at a level at which he can compete and succeed,” Acor said.

Racing nearly every weekend meant missing some school, but Davis, who graduated this year from the Northwest Career and Technical Academy, 8200 W. Tropical Parkway, said his teachers were flexible and allowed him to do catch-up work.

“I was pretty much gone every Friday,” he said.

Davis is enrolled for the fall semester at the College of Southern Nevada. In his free time, he likes to work out at the gym and spend time with his friends.

Davis’ quest for speed began at age 3 when he got a motorized Jeep that he drove in front of his parents’ home. He kept bugging his parents for the chance to race. When he was about 7, his father, Tom, relented and took him to a now-defunct raceway in Sloan. Dusty got behind the wheel of a go-kart and took it on the track.

“I fell in love with it,” he said.

After that, his career choice was solidified in his mind. By age 8, he was competing in age-appropriate go-kart events and has been racing ever since. Next year, he can move up to 11/2-mile tracks and eventually to the 21/2-mile ones. In those races, he said, speeds can reach as fast as 200 mph.

The machines that propel a driver to reach such speeds are finely tuned, not to mention expensive.

According to Alan Mollet, the public relations manager for the race team, a Super Late Model car runs about $85,000; a K&N NASCAR West Series Car is about $120,000; and to race at NASCAR’s top level, the Sprint Cup Series, a car can cost as much as $300,000. Mollet said that for a team to race for an entire season, it can require a $13 million to $20 million sponsorship package.

Sandy Davis joked that when her son wins his first million-dollar prize, he owes his dad a classic car to replace the one he had to sell to support Davis and a vacation as well.

Davis expects to start racing in NASCAR events in spring 2012. For more information about his racing career, visit www.dustydavisracing.com.

Contact Summerlin and Summerlin South View reporter Jan Hogan at jhogan@viewnews.com or 387-2949.

Photography by Jessica Ebelhar