By Sara Page, Midlothian Exchange
spage@midlothianexchange.com

James River sophomore Sam Hunt caught the racing bug in a most unusual way.

Living in the Netherlands, Hunt was given a day with his friends at a local indoor go-kart track for his sixth birthday.

He spent the next few years dabbling at local tracks and seriously got into racing when his family moved back to the United States.

“I came back [in 2002] and I found a local indoor go-karting place and there was a guy there who noticed me. His son was racing in an actual series and he kind of picked me up and told me about it,” Hunt said.

That track was G-Force Karting, which sits less than a mile from Richmond International Raceway. Literally in the shadow of professional racing, Hunt took his first spills and thrills in a go-kart and was soon racing at Capital City Speedway in Ashland.

“It was the very first go-kart that I owned,” Hunt recalled. “It was a local series and I ran there every weekend. It was more of a fun, is this really what I want to do, learning experience.
“I raced there for probably three years, and then we started getting really successful and everything just kind of took off,” Hunt continued.

Around the time Hunt became a serious local contender he was noticed by Larry Hollowell, who had been crew chief for some young teams in the area.

“I could tell he had a lot of talent,” Hollowell said. “You’d see him at the track and he’d struggle a little bit, but he was just so much different than other [people]. Sam is the most compassionate young person I’ve ever been around. He genuinely cares about his friends and about other people, and he’s been like that since he was a boy. Even at 10 years old, he was just such a pleasure to be around that I had to go work with him.”

As crew chief, Hollowell entered Hunt into regional and state level events. In 2006, Hunt grabbed nine wins and placed in the top five in the North Carolina/Virginia Money Series. In 2007, Hunt won in the Junior Champ Kart division of the Maxxis National Championship Race at Thunder Valley Motorplex (S.C.), and he was ready to graduate to more horsepower.
Though not allowed to run a full late model stock car until the age of 16, Hunt took the wheel of U-Car to learn the feel of bigger wheels.

“That was just kind of to learn how to drive an actual car and the shifting and just getting used to having that big car around me,” Hunt said. “The go-kart, it’s just you in a little seat.”
He started racing last June in a late model car, as soon as he turned 16. Though young drivers are restricted to limited late model cars, which are late model racing cars that are restricted in power and speed, Hunt developed a strategy that allowed him to have success on the track even with unrestricted cars racing with him.

“I raced two late model races last year [with the restricted engine],” Hunt explained. “I kind of used patience to kind of take an advantage because people would take off for the first 50 laps and drive as hard as they could, and I just kind of paced myself and tried to keep the tires from wearing out too bad. So once everybody started slipping back, I could kind of advance.”

In 2009, Hunt entered four limited late model and two regular late model class races. He finished in the top five in both regular late model races including a win at Shenandoah Speedway in September, and earned a pole and a win in the limited late model races.

Now entering his 11th year behind the wheel, Hunt is gunning for some stiff competition. He plans to take his No. 20 red Chevy late model into the NASCAR Whelan All-American Series, which is the official amateur series of NASCAR. Hunt will run a partial schedule of 17 races at tracks around Virginia and North Carolina.

Though it seems like a fast rise through the ranks, there’s no doubt in his crew’s mind that Hunt is ready.

“We’ve gone from leaving little sticky notes on his steering wheel telling him to be patient and wait your time to now we can talk to Sam and … we pretty much have an idea what we’re going to do … The biggest thing I see about Sam is that he can execute,” Hollowell said.

No doubt his calm demeanor gets him through tough situations as well.

“We gave him a little nickname back when I met him at 10 years old,” Hallowell laughed. “I’ve always had hunting dogs and I said if he was one of my hunting dogs I’d name him Porch Dog because he just lays around. When everything’s going around, he’s just like no big deal, but when he gets in the race car or he gets in the cart, you think, oh Lord, here it comes, and he executes everything to the T.

“His daddy and I used to laugh,” Hollowell continued. “You know the ol’ Porch Dog, he lays up on the porch ‘til he hears the other dogs running and then he jumps of the porch and heads the other ones off. It’s always been a little joke … He knows where everyone’s at, he knows where he wants to be and when he wants to be there.”

According to Hollowell, Hunt never put a scratch on his car in racing action last year, and is getting compliments from race directors wherever he goes. But racing isn’t Hunt’s only talent. He’s also an honor roll student at James River High School and plays on the school’s football and baseball teams. As a quarterback on the junior varsity squad, he set a state record for touchdowns with 27 in nine games. He also played in four varsity contests as a back up for senior Josh Wells.

Still racing is the sport he works his schedule around. He entered the NASCAR Whelen Series in hopes of attracting the attention of professional teams, and there’s little doubt that one day, the talented youngster will open his racing season in Daytona.

“Sam’s one of the few that I’ve worked with that could really come back and tell you, ‘It’s pushing in the middle,’ ‘It’s tight coming off,’ and you could go back and make those adjustments. Sam is always right. The computer would show that what Sam was saying was what the car was showing on the computer.

“Everybody told us last year, ‘Larry, don’t be disappointed if you all can just make the field,’ or ‘Larry, don’t be disappointed, you all are going to be lapped,’” Hollowell continued. “I think we finished in the top 10 or 11 on the first time out. People were coming from down the pits going, ‘This kid – there’s no way he’s never sat in a stock car!’ I think he’s made a lot of believers in him.”