Employee Rides: Stallard Micro Sprint - Alex Owen

There is something about a fire breathing purposely built racecar that gets me excited about life. You have a human being that has built up enough courage to try and tame something that could take their life. It’s not something that you get to see everyday nor is it something that everyone in the world understands the challenges. It’s something that takes a lot of respect on both the driver’s side and the cars side. The car must respect the person behind the wheel and the driver must respect the car and themselves. The driver also must believe in themselves a great deal that they can produce the results they dream about. As soon as I watched my first race, I thought it was the coolest thing on this planet. It was like watching someone strap into a rocket and shoot for the moon or a fighter pilot in an F-16 launching off an aircraft carrier. I was amazed that a human being could drive a racecar 200 mph inches from other drivers and the wall. Ever since I watched my first race when I was around 5 years old, I wanted to be a racecar driver.

My parents got divorced at a young age and my dad wanted something he and I could do together. He took me to an indoor go-karting place to let me drive on my own. I already had a lot of practice laps in my moms living room with my dominos making a racetrack for die-cast cars. Since I was a little guy driving jr. karts, the racing lines came naturally to me and so did the driving. For the first time I felt like I belong somewhere in life, just me and the car. The next week my dad and I were at a local kart track learning and a couple weeks later we were racing ourselves.

I started racing go-karts locally in at Thunderlake Speedway in Kansas City in 2005. My dad and I were racing there weekly from ‘05 to ‘08. In 2009, we decided to up our game by racing at a higher level. So, we traveled across the Midwest racing on a national level. In 2010, we came home one night after racing locally, parked our truck and trailer in front of the house, and by the next morning someone had stolen our trailer with all of the racing equipment in it. This was a tough deal, but it was a turning point in my career. We didn’t get back everything that was stolen, but we sold what we did get back. I was able to move up into a micro sprint in 2011 and started racing weekly at Sweet Springs Motorsports Complex.

Since moving into micros, I’ve taken over ownership of my racing team. It’s been a real challenge learning on my own what it is like to put a racecar on the track. Most weeks it’s not easy but after I win, all the hard work is worth it.