FLORIDA NATIVE AUSTIN PICKENS QUICKLY MOVING UP RACING LADDER WITH SIGHTS SET ON A BRIGHT FUTURE

When then 9-year-old Austin Pickens began racing motocross in 2002, the young Windermere, Florida, native only knew he liked riding dirt bikes and he was pretty good at racing them, too. There was no peering into the future, and few thoughts as to where the beginnings of a career in motorsports may lead him.

Fast forward six years to 2009. Nearing his 16th birthday in June, Pickens has made a successful transition from bikes to cars and won around 30 features in a span of about five years. He’s now a regular on the ASA Southeast Asphalt Tour (ASA SAT), widely considered to be one of the most competitive late model touring series in America. Still residing in Windermere, Austin’s Pic’s Motorsports team, led by his father, Steve, is in the process of moving into a brand new shop that will see a new Howe Racing Chassis late model stock car move in shortly after its completion.

It’s the new shop, new car and dedicated team that tell Austin Pickens fans about all they need to know about their driver’s position in the sport. He’s young and maybe a bit raw, but he has all the tools necessary to make a push toward the sport’s highest levels, of which include NASCAR.

“We keep making steps,” says Austin, who begins the 2009 season with already seven late model and super truck feature races at his home track New Smyrna Speedway in Florida. “We’ve moved up to ASA this year and we’d like to think this is a step toward ARCA, but we need to do well right now before we can think of the future too much. ASA is a great series and we think we can do very well in it.”

Pickens seems to have an uncanny ability to hop into cars and simply make them go fast. To date, he’s won in every division he’s raced, and wants to continue that streak in 2009 in ASA. The competitive level of the ASA SAT is a far cry from the good times of the motocross racing in Florida that Austin isn’t all that far removed from.

“Dirt bikes were fun for me. It was just a good time and not a lot of pressure. When we moved to quarter-midgets, I knew I wanted to do well and I think we starting taking it more serious. The better we did, the better we wanted to do. You just get that drive to win and that’s what racing is all about. It’s still a lot of fun, but in a different way, I guess,” says Austin.

When Pickens says his team did “better” when they moved to quarter-midgets at the Little New Smyrna Speedway, he means it. He began racing in the class in 2005 and promptly put together a terrific season in 2006 at New Smyrna, which included an outstanding 18 feature wins, a point championship in Heavy Honda and a second-place point finish in Heavy 160.

The Pic’s Motorsports team traveled to Topeka, Kansas, that year to compete in the Western Grand Nationals for quarter-midgets – the biggest quarter-midget race in the country next to the Eastern Grands. Contending against countless racers from all over the country, Austin drove to a fine third-place finish in the Heavy Honda class at the ’06 Grands.

But he didn’t stop there.

In 2007 Pickens entered the half-midget class – quarter-midget racing’s top level – for the eastern half of the country’s most prestigious quarter-midget race of the year – the Eastern Grands at the Miami Valley Quarter Midget Club in Xenia, Ohio. Austin truly shined in what at the time was his greatest accomplishment in the sport: He beat out the best half-midget racers in America to win the Half Midget A-Main and be crowned an Eastern Grands Champion, an accomplishment that continues to elude many extremely talented young racers.

Throughout Austin’s terrific 2006 and 2007 campaigns, Steve came to the realization that his son possessed the talent to at least be one of the best racers at a competitive quarter-midget club in not only central Florida, but the entire country. Could he possibly have the talent to be a star at higher levels of the sport?

“Austin showed his capability in ’06 and then again in ’07,” says Steve, a successful business owner in the Orlando area. “That’s when we knew that he had the driving ability to be successful. We moved into stock cars and trucks at the end of ’07, and right from the start Austin did great in the heavier, faster stock cars and trucks. We think he has the talent to do very well in this sport given the right opportunities.”

“Very well” may be an understatement from the modest father. While he was still 14 in May of 2008, Austin drove to his first professional racing victory in the Pro Truck division at New Smyrna Speedway. And not the Little New Smyrna quarter-midget track, but the high-banked half-mile speedway where many of the greatest short-track racers in the country have competed and won races throughout the years. Austin’s first New Smyrna win was followed by three more while the driver was progressing up a learning curve from quarter- and half-midgets to very powerful full-sized race cars and trucks. While Austin seemingly adapted very quickly, it’s a learning curve that many capable young racers find quite difficult.

“It was different,” Austin says, alluding to the move to pro trucks, “but the half-midget really helped me. When you race a small car that is so fast on very short tracks (most quarter-midget ovals are less than one-tenth of a mile), the racing is so intense and everything happens so fast that I think it prepared me a lot for bigger cars. (Moving to pro trucks) was definitely a change, but I wouldn’t say it was intimidating to me or anything like that. It’s a lot faster, but it’s still about going as fast as you can while being as smooth as you can.”

To add to the transition, the Pic’s Motorsports team purchased a Lefthander late model chassis and toward the end of the ’08 season entered Austin in the Limited Late Model division at New Smyrna. The young Floridian didn’t waste any time making headlines in the class, consistently finishing in the top five and driving to a popular win in a limited late model feature late in the 2008 season.

Living and racing in Florida, Pickens’ offseason is barely one at all – something like enjoy the holidays for a few weeks and get back to racing! Following the conclusion of 2008, Pickens didn’t waste any time getting back behind the wheel as the Pic’s Motorsports team entered a Victory Marketing Team No. 63 late model and a Greenbriar Landscape No. 63 pro truck in the 43rd annual World Series of Stock Car Racing in February at New Smyrna. A prestigious annual event that finds many racers from all across the United States travelling south to Florida to compete, Pickens was now considered to be one of the “regulars” at the half-mile oval and he’d be forced to defend his home-turf.

And defend, he did.

Austin picked up right where he left off at the end of ’08, winning all three World Series Pro Truck races and driving the limited late model to three second-place runs and two fourths over the eight-day stretch. Pickens ended the World Series with three wins, three second-places and eight top-fives in 11 overall starts.

“I look at New Smyrna as my home track, and I really like racing on it,” says Austin. “Even though we haven’t been racing late models and pro trucks for that long, I’ve already driven a lot of laps at New Smyrna and we run really well there and we expect to do well. I’m glad we had a solid showing at the World Series when a lot of out-of-towners were there. I think it shows how good our team really is.”

But in 2009 Austin will have to get used to traveling away from the track just outside of Daytona Beach at which he’s made quite a name for himself. It’s a “traveling” trend that Austin hopes will set the tone for the upcoming years of his racing career.

“Of course, if I want to make it in the sport, we can’t just race at New Smyrna. But I’d like to think that my time at New Smyrna will help me when we start traveling to different tracks, which we’ve already started doing this year. I hope we’ll be traveling for many years – this year with ASA Southeast and hopefully in the future with ARCA and eventually NASCAR.”

While Austin has time on his side – he’ll be a high school sophomore in the fall 2009 – he says he plans on working hard to make the most of every opportunity he gets. If that means he’s ahead of the curve, then so be it.

But for right now Austin and the Pic’s Motorsports team are focused on 2009 and making good in ASA and at other big late model races. Although he got caught up in another racer’s accident in the ASA SAT opener at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Fla., ultimately ending his day early, the team proved they could run fast with the “big boys” of the late model game.

The remainder of 2009 will be quite an interesting one for the Pic’s Motorsports team. Don’t be surprised to see the Pickens name near the top of the ASA SAT charts sooner rather than later. It would just be another case of young Austin Pickens proving that talent can overcome relative inexperience. He’s proved it multiple times before in Florida, and now he’s out to prove it to the rest of the racing world.