Mason Mingus ready to wrestle wheel of Super Late Model

 

Opens season at Gresham on March 13th

By T D Davis

After a hard fought seventh place finish in the Tennessee high school wrestling tournament, Mason Mingus has turned his attention to another one of his favorite sports…stockcar racing.

Mingus, from Brentwood, TN, and the team for which he drives, Gardner Racing based in Louisville, KY, are set to race several Super Late Model series in 2010. He will open his season at the newly renovated Gresham Motorsports Park in Georgia in a CRA Super Late Model race on March 13^th.

“I participate in several sports including football, wrestling and stockcar racing,” the talented 15-year-old athlete said recently. “I had a great time playing football and wrestling for Franklin Road Academy but now it’s time to turn my attention to racing, which is my favorite sport.”

Mingus’ plans include several CRA races, including legendary Salem Speedway event, as well as venturing to the Gulf Coast area to compete in at least four of the Blizzard Series races at famed Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, FL.

“We’d like to get some seat time at Five Flags so we can look at racing in the Snowball Derby in December,” he said.

Mingus raced in several Late Model events during the 2009 season picking up a win at Whitesville, Kentucky. He also picked up valuable seat time at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway where he raced against the likes of NASCAR superstar Kyle Busch.

While the young hot shoe is gaining recognition in racing, his early development into a top-notch racer shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows the amiable youngster. After all, he has been a speedster since he got his first go-cart when he was just four years old.

“I knew that I liked going fast when I was four-years-old and my dad bought a two seat go-cart,” he said. “After driving my dad just one time around our yard I stopped in the driveway and promptly asked him to get out,” Mason revealed.

His dad was duly impressed while his mom was duly distressed to see her son blasting around the yard pushing the cart to its limit.

After hot lapping the cart for a while, the young hot shoe graduated to a Quarter Midget racecar and racing became a permanent part of his life.

Success came early for the then, seven-year-old racer. After just three races in the Quarter Midgets, officials moved him out of the beginner division. Using the Quarter Midget division to gain valuable seat time, Mingus learned how to negotiate his way through race traffic. He won numerous races and finished in the top five in points in two tough divisions of the series before moving to the competitive Mini-Cup Division as his need for speed began to build. While racing the half-scale size speedsters, he won five races and gathered several top five finishes.

The need to go faster moved Mingus into the Baby Grand Division. The 2/3-scale racecar division was where NASCAR superstar Carl Edwards, who happens to be Mingus’ favorite driver, won his first championship. The cars routinely accelerate to over 100 mph. In his first full season Mingus raced at a number of tracks in the East and Mid-West on his way to winning the Eastern National Championship.

Again he felt the need for more speed and in August of 2008 he landed a chance to try his hand in a Late Model stock car at Beech Bend Speedway in Bowling Green, KY. Within a few laps in the Gardner Racing Late Model, Mingus’ talent began to be really revealed as the 13-year old was hot lapping as quickly as veteran drivers.

Now, with 2009 season of Late Model racing in the books, Mingus plans to use the 2010 season to continue to gain experience and knowledge.

“We feel that we can be competitive and have a chance to win but we also want to try to get as much seat time as possible and that means we need to finish as many laps as we can,” he said.

But his racing rivals understand that even though he is young, a racer with Mingus’ talent and competitive nature will always