Teenage Drivers - Going Places

The bottom line in any driver search has not changed, however. "As far as the age thing, to me it's not really so much the age as I'm looking particularly for the talent and somebody we think we could mold into a future [Nextel] Cup star," he says. "If he's 15, that's fine; if he's 25, that's fine."

Ganassi fields Nextel Cup cars for drivers Jamie McMurray and Sterling Marlin. Ranier was instrumental in bringing 17-year-old Reed Sorenson to Chip Ganassi Racing. Sorenson competed last season in ASA and was Rookie of the Year in that series.

Just how does a young Jimmy Lang or Michael Ruttkamp become the next Reed Sorenson or Brian Vickers or Kyle Busch?

Roush Racing funnels drivers into its driver development program through the NASCAR Craftsman Truck series. That was the route taken by Kurt Busch, older brother of Kyle Busch, and Greg Biffle, who competed as a rookie in Winston Cup last season. Biffle took a different route to Roush Racing, as he was spotted and recommended to Roush by television commentator Benny Parsons, a former Winston Cup champion. The latest Roush Racing find is Carl Edwards, who competed in the Truck series last season in a ride originally intended for Kyle Busch, who defected to Hendrick Motorsports just before turning 18 last May.

Geoff Smith, president of Roush Racing, says he gets approximately 250 driver referrals each year, so the challenge for the company is to narrow down the list of candidates to find true talent. One of the ways that's done is through Roush's version of The Gong Show, where driver tryouts determine who gets the nod. First a group of drivers test at a short-track supported by regular Roush Racing employees. The ones who make the cut then go to a speedway where the speeds are higher and the dynamic changes. Smith says communication between a driver and the crewchief is vital during the process. The Roush employees will have a truck that needs a particular change or changes to increase speed, and drivers are tested for their ability to communicate what the truck needs.

"It's not enough to be able to put your foot down and have a feel for how a car goes fast," says Smith. "There are a lot of guys who can do that, but in the end the driver has to be able to communicate to the crewchief. Those two brains together make a better combination than either brain being the only one knowledgeable about the mechanical aspects of the car. Our best success with drivers are with people who understand the car equally with the crewchief."

Steve Grissom has been around stock car racing for nearly 25 years, first as a 15-year-old dirt-track racer in his native state of Alabama. Grissom, after moving to asphalt Late Models and eventually the NASCAR All-Pro series, was competing in the NASCAR Busch series by the time he was 24. By the end of the '93 season, the then 29-year-old Grissom was Busch champion, driving for a family-owned team.

Now Grissom, who still occasionally competes in Busch, is helping develop his son Kyle, 14, into a stock car driver. Kyle started racing go-karts at age 4, progressed to racing Bandoleros at Lowe's Motor Speedway when he was 8, and began racing the larger and more powerful Legends cars in 2002 at age 12. He's demonstrated an ability to win at each stage, including the Pro Class at Lowe's.

Steve recognized early, however, that being a successful driver-or developing a successful driver-involves more than turning the wheel. From the beginning, Kyle was taught to turn wrenches on his own race cars. He could weld by age 9.

"Learning the car is probably more important than being able to drive a car," says Steve. "In working with Kyle, when he said this is what he wanted to do and the way we went about it, we weren't going to do things to cheat or get around learning what softening the springs or stiffening the springs or more wedge or less wedge would do to the car. Those are things that Kyle has worked on real hard, knowing his car and knowing what it's doing and being able to say what needs to be adjusted.