Teenage Drivers - Going Places

It's early afternoon on a Friday, and Jim Lang, his son Jimmy, and the family's Late Model race car are all headed north from their home in Bluffton, South Carolina. Their destination this sweltering July evening is Jennerstown, Pennsylvania, where 15-year-old Jimmy will compete in a Saturday afternoon race at half-mile Jennerstown Speedway.

On their way to Pennsylvania, the Langs will stop in Concord, North Carolina, and pick up Charlie Langenstein, who works during the week as a mechanic for Hendrick Motorsports and the Nextel Cup cars of Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson. Langenstein's "golf game," as he calls it, is to assist the Lang family during his spare time. The goal for Langenstein and the Langs is to groom young Jimmy for racing's big leagues.

Langenstein watched Lang turn laps at a near-record pace at Hickory (NC) Speedway last summer-during Lang's first practice laps in a Late Model-and Langenstein came away impressed. "I really believe the kid is a natural," he says. The challenge is for Jimmy to get the proper guidance as he progresses through the ranks.

The Langs are racing at Jennerstown at Langenstein's urging. In 2004, Jimmy plans to compete in the Northern Division of the Hooters ProCup series, and Jennerstown is one of the tracks on the circuit. Langenstein, a native of New Jersey who worked with teams in the Northeast before moving south, knows Jennerstown as a track where a young driver can gain valuable experience. He also has connections in the area, and while at Jennerstown, the Langs work out of a shop that belongs to a friend of Langenstein's.

The Langs will make the trek to Jennerstown four times in the latter part of the summer, arriving in the wee hours of the morning on race day after driving for 13 or more hours from their home in South Carolina.

The '03 season was the first for Jimmy Lang in a Late Model. Already a Legends car veteran at age 14, Lang made the move to the heavier, more powerful Late Models with ease, winning in just his second Late Model race. That happened at Cordele, Georgia, where he battled a local hotshot door to door in the closing laps before getting the victory.

Lang completed only 48 laps during his four trips to Jennerstown, though, thanks largely to carburetor and transmission problems. But he's already done enough in his short career to catch the eye of Hooters ProCup officials, who plan to let him run the full Northern Division schedule this year.

Provided he finds sponsorship, Lang won't be the lone teenage phenom running the Hooters or the ASA circuit in 2004. Michael Ruttkamp, a 15-year-old driver from Connecticut, competed in a few Hooters races late last season and has been approved to run the full Northern Division schedule as well.

Like the American Speed Association (ASA) before it, the Hooters ProCup series has become a preferred stop for young drivers looking to move up in stock car racing. The drivers are now younger than ever, though, as all across the country kids as young as 13 and 14 are being groomed for the highest levels of stock car racing.

The youngsters have had good role models in recent years. The most visible examples of young drivers reaching the top of the sport are at Hend- rick Motorsports where Brian Vickers competed in the Busch series last season at age 19. When Vickers moves up to Nextel Cup this year, his Busch seat will be occupied by 18-year-old Kyle Busch.

Season by season, the sport is growing younger. Call it the Jeff Gordon Factor: Once Gordon became a driving and marketing phenom in his mid-20s at Hendrick Motorsports a decade ago, the dynamics of the sport changed for young drivers.

"It's definitely changed, and I think it's going to keep changing," says Lorin Ranier, whose role at Chip Ganassi Racing includes the unofficial title of talent scout. "I think it's going to where in 10 years from now you'll be surprised to see many [Nextel] Cup drivers over 40. I think it's going to be like Formula One. It's going to be so fast and these guys are going to be so on edge all the time that there's just not going to be many guys that are going to stay around until they're 50 anymore."