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There's an 23-year-old IndyCar driver named Sting Ray Robb (yes, that's his real name; his parents were Chevrolet fans and named him after the Corvette Sting Ray) and when they introduce him, he says he's from Payette, Idaho. That amazed me because Payette is a small town (about 8,000 souls) near the Oregon border northwest of Boise. It's not too far north of Interstate 84.
And I wondered how someone from such a small town could end up being an IndyCar driver. Payette is about the same size as the small town in Idaho where I mostly grew up. So I googled him. Wikipedia said he started kart racing at age 5. Which means when I decided I wanted to be a race car driver at age 8, I was already too late.
But where did Robb race karts. Boise is the nearest town of any size and about an hour drive away for Payette. And, yes, there's a kart racing facility in Eagle, ID which is a suburb of Boise. So, probably on weekends his parents would drive the hour plus to get to the kart racing facility where he could learn racing.
I grew up on the other side of the state, about 250 miles from Boise. Plus, when I was five (or eight), I doubt that kart racing facility was there. So I didn't have the opportunities Robb did. (Plus, I had no idea how to become a race car driver.) This makes me extremely envious of him.
According to Wikipedia, "Robb started running nationally at age eight, entering Cadet division events from 2010 to 2013. During his first season in the Junior ranks, he finished second in America and raced in Valencia, Spain. Robb won a national championship in Rotax Junior Max karting in 2015." So he had some success in karting.
Robb is not one of the usual winners of IndyCar races. He starts somewhere back in the pack and ends up there. At the end of the season he was in 25th place. But still, to be an IndyCar driver must be a dream come true for him. It would be for me.
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