By Roni Gehlke
For the Contra Costa Times
Many great racecar drivers started out at young ages. It's not uncommon to hear stories like Sprint Car racers, Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart starting their career at age five racing quarter midget. That's the footsteps of legends that Brentwood's Blake Bower is hoping to follow as he works his way through California and the rest of the countries best quarter midget races.
Blake, 9, has been racing for the past four years. In 2009 he won 53 races, and so far this year he is winning steadily.
"We've had a lot of big wins this year," said Blake's father, Dave.
Dave Bower and his father before him also raced quarter midget when they were Blake's age.
Blake's racing is going so well this year, that the Hayward midget car manufacturer Rice Race Cars is sponsoring a car for him for the season. Bower says Blake is the only racer the company is currently fully sponsoring this year.
Blake is currently racing three different quarter midget cars in different divisions. That means that at one race he will generally race three times.
During his summer break from Garin Elementary school, Blake and his dad spent six weeks touring and competing in several races throughout the country. The main race being the second annual Battle at the Brickyard in Indiana in July for the 270 United States Auto Club Mopar Quarter Midget.
"Blake won two races at that race. The two races were the Junior Honda race and the Junior Stock race," Bower said. "There were 600 cars at this race with 65 of them in Blake's class."
Blake generally practices every weekend in all three cars. He also takes classes at LA Boxing in Brentwood four days a week, including two days of boxing and two days of jujitsu with Darcio Lira.
"Blake's been exercising with his sisters since he was 4," Bower said. "He's incredibly strong for his age and very athletic."
Bower said that racing is an expensive sport, and Blake has been working hard to win races in hopes to bring in some more major sponsors. Currently they have several good local sponsors, including Mountain Cascade in Livermore and Vornhagen Body and Paint in Brentwood, but he hopes that his high winning totals will attract sponsors who can bring in big donations.
There are several races coming up this fall that Blake is planning to attend, including the Winter National in Pahrump, Nev., which usually hosts more than 500 cars. There is also the Baylands Race in San Jose.
What has been really hard on Blake this year is that in July, he turned 9 years old, at which time he moved up from the junior to the senior level in quarter midgets. Blake isn't so worried about losing races. He'll have to work to catch up for the time he has missed on the senior level, because the junior race wins are good one-on-one, but don't count toward the accumulated senior level end goal championship.
For those interested in sponsoring Blake, e-mail his father at dbower@mountaincascade.com.
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