Aggressively patient is the best way to describe the Northwest’s brightest 360 Sprint car racing stars.
Roger Crockett and Danny Horner drive with different styles, but finish with similar results.
Crockett prides himself on consistency, patiently waiting for the opportunity to present itself and once the gap appears, he quickly closes it by the shadow of his yellow #11.
Horner favors the high line, racing to the top of the track before sticking his right rear in the groove to sustain momentum. He is unfazed by the ruts, which can propel his car completely into the air; instead, Horner opts to flex his right calf by holding down the gas pedal.
Both drivers have recorded multiple wins at the Cottage Grove Speedway in Cottage Grove, Ore., this season, with Crockett taking the checkered flag first in 4 of 5 A-mains and Horner claiming three victories and eight top-five finishes in nine main events. Horner has finished second to Crockett three times this season.
“They’ve got that fire to win, that drive to win,” said Dale Smith, the elder statesman of the Cottage Grove Speedway. “It’s kind of like any sport, if you are not getting mad after the race if you didn’t win … you’ve got to have that competitive spirit to be good I think.”
Smith holds the current Speedway records with 69 A-main victories and six track championships in the 360 Sprints, including five consecutive titles from 2000-04.
“It was fun to win all the time,” Smith said. “We used to dominate and now you can’t ever have a night where you dominate, which is better for the sport, better for the crowd.”
Separated by different backgrounds, Crockett and Horner, the coming-of-age drivers each in their mid-20s, are united by the same dream: to race for a living.
How old are you?
Crockett’s first experience with a sprint car was roughly three years before he was eligible for his driver’s permit.
“The first time he ever drove a car he was 12. Him and I, we built this car and we set it up for him with a seat and everything,” said Brian Crockett, Roger’s father, who spent 18 years racing sprint cars. “And it came time to start it for the first time … I thought, well it’s gonna come to be that we’re ready to start this car and he’s gonna tell me, ‘You know what, maybe I’m not ready to do this.’
“I was over and I was putting a piece of wood on the front of my truck to push him off and I hear him yelling. And I thought, ‘Oh, he’s calling. He’s yelling at me.’ So I went to go to see what he wanted. I thought maybe he was going to tell me this was the time. He said, ‘C’mon. Let’s get going. What’s taking you? What are you doing?’ At that point right there, it hit me that there’s no turning back from this.”
Roger Crockett, who remembers the date, April 16, and the track, Sacramento Raceway, was the youngest driver in the nation at the time.
“It just was amazing to me that the first time he ever drove, he was at the time three and a half years away from having his driver’s license, and I could see he could control the car. He could control the tire spin of the car,” Brian Crockett said.
The Crocketts traveled to Arkansas when Roger was 13 years old, when he logged his first race in a sprint car, in which he finished “around 15th.” The foundation was laid when he was a squirt in the stands watched his father race and the dream became reality once he crossed the finish line to conclude his first race.
“I watched him for as long as I can remember, being a little kid going in grandstands,” Crockett said of his father. “When I was 12 years old I started bugging him that I wanted to race sprint cars.
“My first few years I didn’t run a lot of races. I think the most I’ve run in a year is around 75 races and I’ve pretty much averaged around 60 races the last eight years.”
Crockett has won 82 main events in his career and four consecutive Northern Sprint Tour championships beginning in 2001.
He is currently seventh at the Cottage Grove Speedway in 360 Sprint victories with 10 feature wins.
“I remember when Roger started in Eugene … he made it through the whole season without hurting a wing. That says something about driving skill,” Smith said. “He’s the guy to beat, kind of, in this Northwest, as far as I’m concerned. He’s proven himself in California, Washington, winning NST championships back to back.”
How can I go faster?
Horner began competitive racing in the second grade at the BMX track, which lasted one year until he found out how to race faster, in a car. He spent the following nine years racing go-karts before a need for speed pushed Horner into a sprint car in 2000.
He won three straight Limited Sprint track championships at the Cottage Grove Speedway from 2002-04 before the next logical jump, to 360 Sprints.
“After my second championship, we drove a couple and would fill in for guys that couldn’t race and I knew I wanted to drive pretty bad, but the money was the problem,” said Horner, who admits he wouldn’t be in the 360 class if not for his sponsor and car owner. “You’ve got to have good sponsors or a wealthy family to run a 360 Sprint.
“When we went back East they bought us a brand new pickup when ours broke down. When mine broke down they bought us a $50,000 truck to get us to the race that night.”
The difference between operating the two sprint cars is straight-away speed and quickness exiting turns, Horner said.
“I don’t even know how to describe it,” he said. “It’s almost like you are driving in California. The speed limit is 75 and you get up to Oregon and you’ve got to go 55. Everything just seems to drag. That’s how it feels, but (the throttle) is wide open.”
Horner has become a quick study of the sprint cars, winning a track championship in his second full season in the Limited class and almost winning a title at the Speedway in his first year driving at 360. He finished in fourth place by 116 points despite racing two fewer nights than the top three finishers (110 points is the maximum a driver can earn each night). Horner also finished third in the NST standings and earned Rookie of the Year.
“Danny’s come on strong,” Smith said. “I figured it would take him longer to get where he’s at now, just coming out of the (limited) sprints, but he’s got that natural ability and the drive to win so he’s one of
the cars you worry about.”
An NST championship
Both drivers plan on making several more trips to the East this summer to race in the American Sprint Car Series.
“We’re going to go back and run the ASCS 360 Nationals at Knoxville,” Horner said. “I think that is going to be our last long trip.”
Both Horner and Crockett are planning on leaving for Knoxville, Iowa, where the 360 Nationals are held Aug. 3-5, the day after Speedweek concludes.
Horner competed in Oklahoma and at the Rocky Mountain Regional earlier this year and said the schedule is grueling.
“It’s tough. It’s almost like the military,” Horner said. “You don’t sleep and you don’t eat very well. You’ve got to figure out a program.”
The ASCS has approximately five different speedweeks, similar to the NST Speedweek in Oregon and Washington that Crockett and Horner are currently competing in. A speedweek features multiple races at numerous tracks within one week. Crockett and Horner are also each gunning for the NST championship this season, which has
completed only one race prior to speedweek, which is at the Cottage Grove Speedway tonight.
“Our main goal this year is to win an NST championship,” Horner said. “We need to go for the bigger races.” Both are planning to compete with the National Sprint Tour and World of Outlaws when each series makes an appearance in the West next month.
Will I be discovered?
Each driver agrees that moving East is imperative to jump-starting a professional racing career at the highest level.
Kasey Kahne, who is a regular in the NASCAR Nextel Cup series, is one of the few drivers to mo
ve up from Northwest sprint car racing.
“I think this is a bad location. Kasey Kahne, he had to travel back East to get recognized,” Smith said. “I think there’s a lot of guys in this Northwest capable of
driving, moving up to NASCAR. It’s just who you know and getting to the right area of the United States to get recognized. I’d put our 360 cars against any cars in the nation.”
Kahne’s father, Kelly, said the opportunity to move up isn’t in the Northwest.
“I think you have to go to the Midwest,” Kahne said. “There’s just so much more support for racing back there and big race teams that have scouts at tracks and people around to look for young guys coming up.
“I thought for Kasey to have a career in racing that for sure not to go to California but to go to Indianapolis and race out of there. There’s a lot of racing, a lot of tracks, a lot of competition, a lot of people. I think that you’ll have a better opportunity of getting noticed back there. It’s just a different type of racing, different types of tracks and higher quality of racers back there.”
Kahne told his son he wasn’t going to let
him race in California and to figure out another destination, knowing he would choose Indianapolis, Kelly Kahne said.
“When Kasey went back to Indianapolis he ran over 100 races a year two years in a row in my car so he got some exposure,” he said. “We got a shop back in Indianapolis and an apartment for him to live in so he could go back there and get experience and exposure at the same time.”
Crockett said his most memorable victory was in 1998 against Kahne, before he left for the Midwest.
“I think the biggest race I won was the 360 Dirt Cup,” Crockett said of his triumph in Skagit, Wash. “Starting the front row with Kasey Kahne, look where he’s at now, and we beat him, that’s a pretty cool race to remember.”
Crockett also said the race was probably the biggest 360 race in the world at that time with a payout of approximately $7,000, which has increased to $10,000.
“I think Roger’s got talent and I think a guy needs to get a little bit of a break here and there too,” Kahne said.
Crockett isn’t in awe of competition on any level and his father believes that if Crockett receives the right opportunity, he could have similar success to Kahne.
“There’s no doubt in my mind. He raced with people who have moved up to higher levels of racing,” Brian Crockett said. “To me, there is such a similarity when we raced with Kasey Kahne, against Kasey Kahne for a few years. The way they drove is very similar. Neither one of them wouldn’t take an excessive chance unless they really thought that they could get by safely. To me, there’s no doubt in my mind that he could move up to that level and with the right situation he could be very successful at it.”
In the end, money is the most important factor, the elder Crockett said.
“With Kasey Kahne, he had enough financial backing to do whatever it took to get to the right people, to see the right people, just to get to the right spots and get your lucky break,” said Crockett, who is currently starting a business selling sprint car parts and working on motors. “It’s not like a basketball, or a sport where you bring your tennis shoes and your ball and go play. It takes a lot of financial support and it takes getting in the right position with the right people.”
Horner said that racing at the top level, in either the National Sprint Tour or World of Outlaws Series, is a goal that he needs to start pushing for in the near future.
“I haven’t set a timeline. I kind of know that I gotta do it within probably three (years) just because everyone is pretty young anymore that’s doing it,” Horner, who grew up and currently resides in Cottage Grove, Ore., said of committing to a season in a top series. “It’s easy to say that you would do that, but it’s tough to leave what you’ve got and start out with nothing.”
Roger Crockett said he has considered a similar situation.
“I’ve thought about just picking up and moving. Taking my racing bag and a seat, seeing what happens,” said Crockett, who lives in Medford, Ore. “I just love racing so much I couldn’t imagine sitting out a month let alone a whole year.”
However, a lack of confidence isn’t a factor for Crockett.
“I’ve run all over the country and had success everywhere I’ve went. I’ve won races on every series I’ve ever run,” he said. “We almost won the Tournament of Champions race at Knoxville a couple of years ago. You had 90 of the best 360 drivers in the world there and I led over half the race and ran second, only the second time being at Knoxville. I think I’ve proven I can run good on any level given the right opportunity.
“I think given the right opportunity I can drive anything with four wheels and a steering wheel. I’d like to expand my skills into other forms of racing, that’s for sure. NASCAR looks like it’d be fun, but you’d have to be in the right situation. I love just traveling all over the United States, racing wherever you want, whenever you want and just trying to win races everywhere you go.”
The bottom line is that both drivers love seat time, no matter where the race is.
“I’d just like to race for a living,” Horner said. “I’d race anything. NASCAR would be cool, but dirt sprint cars is awesome. I’m not sure if you could ever drive something more exciting.”
Exhilaration combined with passion has breaded two drivers on a similar path. “My dream is to make a living racing. Right now I have an 8-to-5 job like everyone else. I am fortunate enough to get off work whenever I need to get off work to go racing, which is hard to find a good job like that,” Crockett said. “I’d love to have a good enough deal where I could go race all over the place and that’s all I need to focus on. Give it 100 percent all the time and that’s all your job is.”
Crockett and Horner agree that the goal is not about turning their hobby into a career. It is about a lifestyle that fulfills dreams that smell of dirt, sweat and rubber; a lifestyle in which the only question all week is: Where are we racing this weekend?
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