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Future Star: Kennedy providing family, community intro to racing

By Raygan Swan, NASCAR.com
July 22, 2008 - 10:12am

In the quaint town of Aztec, N.M., population 6,000, the racing culture among the youth is virtually non-existent; most of the kids hang at the town's sprawling skate park or cruise the mall.

However, teenager Alex Kennedy is bucking that trend by exposing his Southwest suburb to the excitement of NASCAR.

"Most of the kids here have no idea what I do," said Kennedy, a 16-year-old up-and-comer signed to drive a partial schedule for Spraker Racing Enterprises in NASCAR's Camping World East Series this season. "They didn't know until a front-page article on our sports page came out about me. Then they were all freaking out."

Now he's somewhat of a hometown celebrity as word about the Aztec native's talent behind the wheel is spreading. Soon he hopes to blaze a trail to NASCAR's big leagues, a goal he's pursued since age 5 when he started racing BMX bikes at a local park.

His father Terry Kennedy was a stick-and-ball kind of guy with modest means. He wasn't sure how to help his son forge a career in racing beyond buying a go-kart to motor around the backyard.

"I just wanted to find something I could put him in with a cage and a seat belt," Terry Kennedy said. "He accommodated me by playing baseball for a while, but I knew he wanted to race so I got on the Web and found Quarter Midgets."

From there, his son's progression, dictated by age and ability, was that of most young racers, although it required thousands of miles on the family car. Racing venues to springboard young Alex's career were states away.

But his father was willing to make the trips to Arizona and California and cities like Dallas and Las Vegas, where opportunities to compete were more available.

His father funded Bandolero and Legends car rides to go racing at Texas Motor Speedway along with other regional tracks where, on limited resources, Alex won championships as well as broke track records.

In 2006 and 2007, he was ready to go Late Model racing.

But it was here, at 14, where his ability and competition level began to exceed what his father could manage.

Terry Kennedy arranged for a Late Model test with Jeff Spraker, owner of Spraker Racing Enterprises, at South Boston Speedway in Virginia. Spraker was impressed with what he saw and enlisted Alex Kennedy into his driver development program.

"Alex is the real deal," Spraker said. "We have tested him twice, and he has a natural ability behind the wheel. He has tremendous potential, and we are pleased to have him join our organization."

Terry Kennedy admitted he had to "get out of the way" and let more qualified people steer his son's career.

"I pretty much handed the keys to the kid to Jeff and said, 'Take him as fast and as far as you can take him,'" the father recalled.

The feeling was overwhelming for the 45-year-old computer specialist who, instead of trying to understand car setups, has focused his attention on safety aspects for his son.

"I'm not a driver, so I can't begin to understand what he does," Terry Kennedy said. "I give him knuckles and walk a way, but I'm sensitive to every piece of safety equipment on his car."

Meanwhile, Alex Kennedy is managing his transition from Late Models to the much more powerful and heavier machines in the Camping World Series.

He has shown he can run up front and qualify the cars well. And in his Camping World Series West debut for T.J. Clark, Kennedy finished 11th on the Infineon Raceway road course in June.

"The car sputtered coming up the hill on that last lap and died coming off the last corner or I would have finished 10th," Kennedy said.

Now attracting national media attention, the folks around Aztec are starting to appreciate their developing NASCAR star, including his own family who until recently never followed the sport.

"It's the funniest thing because I introduced my family to racing," Kennedy laughed. "Basically before I came along racing no one knew what it was. My grandpa now knows the top 10 in Sprint Cup Series. He'll call me and talk to me about races and I'm like, 'Grandpa, is that you?'"