I truly enjoy every chance I get to become acquainted with “new” drivers on the rise and have had the pleasure of interviewing and working with quite a few minority drivers who are or were hoping to break into the upper NASCAR Series with hopes of changing the face of racing to reflect the true face of this great and diverse nation. Some strides have been made along the diversity lines but unfortunately there is still a lack of any significant minority presence in the 3 upper series.
Recently I had the pleasure to speak at length with Brian Wong, a 5th generation Californian who has a genuine passion for motorsports that began when he was just 6 months old. That passion led him to the NASCAR Legends Series when he was just 13 and from there he moved on to the NASCAR East and West Series. Of course Brian wasn’t happy with simply staying where he was. He was always progressing and always seemed to be the youngest in whatever type or series of racing he was competing in. I think it best to have Brian tell his own story and you will realize, like I have, the level of his passion, talent, determination and his vision for the future.
“I guess it’s kind of a nontraditional racing kind of story from the path most drivers take. For me, personally, I had no member of my family who was an ex-racer, no one was interested in motorsports and there were no ties to racing as far as family or friends in any automotive racing or motorsports in general. It literally was something I just stumbled on and have fallen in love with. Like they say I caught the bug pretty early as a child. My parents have always told me I just loved toy cars, cars on TV or anything with a motor, the sound of it would just catch my attention even as a baby. I started out going to the desert here in California with my family to take our RV out and, go camping. We had our quads and dirt bikes. With my first quad, and I can barely remember this, my dad would make a little track that would just circle the whole campground and at 7 A.M. I would get on my bike and just ride straight through 3 gas tanks to lunch time. I’d stop, eat some lunch and get back on and just ride and ride for hours. I wouldn’t stop and my mom had to pull me off the quad. That’s really how it started and as I got older I started watching more racing, track racing, off road racing, all kinds of car racing in general and it just slowly progressed to where I wanted to drive a race car.”
“The first car I ever drove was a Legend car at Irwindale Speedway (Southern California). We bought the car but we had no trailer to haul the car with. I went through a test at the track, then an “arrive and drive” session at the track with the Legend car. Legend cars are pretty hard to drive. They’re over powered, not enough tire or weight so they fly around a lot and are really a fun car to drive.” The track official was amazed that I had never driven a race car before and said I did so well at the test that they should get me in a race to see what he could do.
“No more than a month later the trailer we used was a weekend dirt bike trailer and by no means made for a car, but we threw that little Legend car in that trailer and showed up towed by our pickup truck. We were late for practice because we didn’t know about registration or any of that stuff. It was just me and my dad and he had no idea what was going on about the car. He’s not a mechanic or anything and I didn’t know anything about racing or the etiquette and I had this new gear and all this stuff and I remember never being more scared in my life. I was terrified. I remember I started in the back and one of the track chaplains came over and said a prayer about keeping me safe and I thought ‘I’m not going to get hurt am I? I mean what is this?’ I was oblivious to everything. I went out, ran some laps and had so much fun. My mother came to watch my first race and was angry with my dad and horrified when the car next to me exploded in flames. My racing career almost ended before it started. I went home and just thought wow that was really, really cool.”
“It just went on from there. We had a shop down here in Santa Ana in Orange County, CA where I live. It was basically a storage unit where we kept a couple of our spare cars and all of our quads and toys that my parents didn’t want to keep at the house. So we ended up keeping the racecar there. We ran a couple of races and my dad realized he had no idea what was going on with the car and I was trying to figure out the driving part. Fast forward a few months, we bought another legend car, hired a full time mechanic for the car and to work with my driving. Looking back it was half stupid, half daring and we literally had no idea what we were getting in to. I ran almost 2 years in that series. I ran Irwindale and Orange Show (San Bernardino) race tracks learning as I went . Looking back it’s almost like it was better that way. We just bought the car, jumped it and started making laps.”
He continued to race in the NASCAR Legends Series through the age of 15. During the winter season he and his team would head to Las Vegas for the 6 race winter schedule on the outside track and on the inside road course. Turning left on that road course proved to be quite interesting to Brian and immediately the love of road racing brought Brian to another level of motorsports madness, so to speak. This seemed like a whole new world. Until then young Brian had no idea this type of racing even existed.
That first year in that Legends Series Brian won the championship.
During one of the weekends when Brian was competing in one of the road course Legends event at Vegas there was a local Porsche Club race event also. Young Brian was just fascinated with these cars. He hit the paddock, talked to some of the drivers and team owners and discovered these cars were being raced all over the world. Approximately one month later while back at Vegas for another Legend race one of the Porsche team owners who he had spoken with the month before had been watching him race the Legends and allowed Brian to climb in the Porsche and take some practice laps. The shifting, the clutch, throttle and down shifting came quite easy for Brian. He felt extremely comfortable and another level of racing was about to be added to this 15 year old’s career. That year his father bought a race prepared track Porsche (GT3 Cup car) and that portion of his career flourished. At 17 he competed in his 1st Porsche club race, received an invitation to Germany and Italy by Porsche Motorsports for a driver assessment and then a couple of years ago Brian competed in the American Le Mans Series.
Yet his love of stock car racing had never left him. “I started out in NASCAR,” he continued, “and then went sportscar racing but no matter what I was racing, even sportscar racing full time, I always had time to run some NASCAR races, a late model race here and there or a K&N race or something like that. In fact in 2009 I was racing full time in both series. People would always ask how I could do this and which cars I liked better. I thought about it and the cars are completely different, the style of racing is completely different and everything is the complete opposite. It’s almost like doing 2 different sports. I was able to appreciate and enjoy doing both. I’d do a month of sportscar racing and by the end of that month I would be really itching to get back in my stockcar, rub against some fenders and get back to that kind of racing.
Then after running some NASCAR races I’d get the bug to get back in my sportscar. I haven’t done everything in sportscar racing that I want to do but right now I want to go back and give NASCAR racing a true shot. I just feel like I really want to make a push and do it at a higher level than just the West Series or local late model racing. I’d like to run some Truck races and some Nationwide races and stack up against the best drivers in the world and see what that’s really like.
I’ve raced throughout Asia and Europe in sportscars, I’ve raced in Grand-Am and American LeMans, the two highest sportscar series in North America. I’ve raced against some of the best guys in the world, the best sportscars, the best teams and the best drivers and it’s been fun but I haven’t had that chance in NASCAR. I haven’t given it a true shot. I haven’t given it my all. I haven’t dedicated myself to just stockcar racing. That’s what you really need to do to make it in NASCAR.”
Last year Brian competed in Asia. He was the only Asian driver on the podium who needed a translator to assist him. “It was really an eye opener to talk to people there and get the mindset of the Chinese culture. That’s our big thing now. We’re sitting on this opportunity of how to take the Chinese businesses and the US branding into the biggest sport in the world and that’s NASCAR. The formula is there and we’re just trying to make it work.”
To that end Brian has been working with Brett Bodine, who is in charge of NASCAR’s driver assessment, to realize his track progression requirements. This young man is amazing. He is! We spoke at great length about so many aspects of his racing career and what he hopes to accomplish in the future, far too much to include here.
But I can tell you that this 23 year old experienced racer has all the desire and obvious talent it will take to succeed. He will represent any team and sponsor well. Brian has a few sponsors that have worked with him along his career thus far, sponsors like Quiksilver, Dryer’s Grand Ice Cream, Oakley Products and a few others. They will most likely follow him into this next racing venture on some level, however NASCAR is a much more expensive racing venue. The door has already been opened for foreign involvement in NASCAR with Toyota, so why not show the true face of a foreign sponsor? That mix of experience, talent, dedication, ethnicity and the possibility of major foreign financing could be magic for NASCAR on the track, in the grandstands and in the corporate boardrooms both here and there. This could be just the thing to open the door further and truly begin to diversify this sport.
I’m wishing this young man great success! For more information on Brian’s racing career please check out these websites:
http://www.worldstageracing.com/ and
http://www.brianwongmotorsports.com/
And for contact information:
Motion PR
