Racer's Son and Other Youngsters Get Early Start on Track

By Robert Lipsyte
New York Times News Service

Photos by Steven Rose

NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. - The Little Intimidator, as his grandmother calls him, lost concentration in the middle of his first race of the night, and an older, more experienced driver bumped him out of the way and took the lead. But not for long. The Little Intimidator, as his father put it, "just doesn't give," and his red No. 6 Cap'n Crunch car seemed to snort and buck as he bumped right back, regained the lead and swept to victory.

Then the Little Intimidator, better known in the third grade as Matt Martin, pulled off his helmet, climbed out of his quarter-midget car, and ran off to play with his friends. He had plenty of time before his next race. Who wants to sit around watching the pit crew change tires and tweak engines when you are nine years old?

"He's aggressive and you can't teach that," said his father, Mark Martin, 42, a NASCAR star. "Matt's like Dale Earnhardt that way. With Earnhardt, if you stood up to him, you'd wreck. But they're pretty careful at this level. They won't let you spin people out.

"I don't want to tell Matt to drive differently, not now while he's fearless. Time enough after he gets his heart broken a few times, he'll learn to have better judgment."

Matt is one of an estimated 4,000 American children ages 5-13 driving the little fiberglass racers with their 2.5- to 4-horsepower engines that can reach speeds of almost 40 mph. Such NASCAR headliners as Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and the Labonte brothers, Terry and Bobby, the defending Winston Cup champion, started out strapped into these snarling machines, caged by padded roll bars, supported by pit-crew parents.

"It's the biggest family sport you will see," said Bonnie Henry, the self-described "pit mom" of Kevin, 12. Kim Henry, 51, Bonnie's husband and Kevin's father, works full-time as Matt's crew chief. "I call football and baseball the 'drop-off sports,' because parents leave their kids at the field and drive away," Bonnie Henry said.

"We know where our kids are and who they're with because we're here too," Henry said. "They learn sportsmanship and valuable morals. We meet other families. The rewards are high."

So are the costs: about $5,000 to start and at least several hundred a month for fuel and repairs, not to mention travel and time spent. And you need a one-twentieth of a mile bankedtrack. Led by Martin, who lives in nearby Daytona Beach, local parents raised enough money to carve out a midget track in an infield corner of the half-mile New Smyrna Speedway.

"After the season was over last November, I started spending time with Matt and his cars," Mark Martin said. "I began to understand how my father, Julian, felt. He worked so hard on my races cars, he was so proud, and I took it for granted."

Unlike Mark - a patient and cunning driver willing to let someone go, then catch him napping later - Matt, who started driving at seven, has a quick instinct for that moment when he can dive under an opponent on a turn and pass.

"It happened when he was eight, as if a light bulb went on over his head," said Matt's mother, Arlene. "It started as a game. He wasn't that serious, and then he wanted to do it and he wanted to win every time."

Mark said: "Once that happened, it became my charge to get him the best equipment I can. If he gets beaten by cars faster than his, that's my fault. But once I get his cars in shape, it's his job. He's talented and he's salable."

Matt is salable enough to afford two full-time employees as crew for Matt's Wednesday and Friday night races: Kim Henry, a former electronics engineer, and Henry's son, Shane, 24. They also work on Matt's and other cars in Mark's garage.

Next summer, pictures of Matt and Mark will appear on 10 million cereal boxes. His two quarter-midget cars are sponsored by Quaker Oats cereal brands, Cap'n Crunch and Life. These deals are not Matt's per se; they were spawned by Mark's sponsorship package with Gatorade, another Quaker Oats product, and Martin is reluctant to discuss specific numbers. Still, Matt was the only midget racer with national signage on his car; other youngsters' cars had advertising, but it was of the local gas station variety.

Despite the corporate sponsorship and full-time crew, Matt was still a 9-year-old, playing hide-and-seek in the chilly darkness among the vans and haulers and chasing off a 5-year-old girl who wanted an autograph. When his parents asked him to hand out boxes of cereal, he managed to start a food fight.

"It's no secret, I don't want him to race," said Arlene Martin. "And it's not just the safety. It's a demanding, time-consuming, stressful life. Of course, I worry about Mark. But what kind of life can you have, you would be nutty, if you thought about it all the time."