It’s a typical night at the speedway, or so it seems. The air is hot, tinged with the fragrance of spent racing fuel mixed with grilled meats that seems exclusive to an evening at the track.
The town’s top young racecar driver is checking air pressure in his tires before curling into a little car that seems a replica of 1934 Ford Coupe. As always, his mom and dad, equal parts anxious and superstitious, are there. In what has become a karmic ritual for the couple, they don’t sit together as he competes. Dad melts into the grandstand. Mom doesn’t even sit. She stands behind the tall fence on Turn 2, pacing, shouting to her son as if he can hear her over the roar of 25 competing racecars.
The kid behind the wheel is Dylan Kwasniewski, a 10-year veteran of competitive driving though he’s just 14 years old. If that surname gives pause it should, because Dylan’s father, Randy, is president and Chief Executive Officer of the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas. The friend is Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, who (to lift a line from the late George Carlin) makes a living by beating people up, as one of the top UFC competitors in the world. To use motor sports terms, this is horsepower. Dylan’s mom, Jennifer, keeps track of all on- and off-track issues, such as scheduling and keeping the Dylan Kwasniewski Web site in running order.
What of this kid? Family affiliation aside, he’s hell on wheels. Dylan Kwasniewski is already a multiple points champion at LVMS and about a lock to win another title this year. The Legends class is made up of drivers of assorted ages and skill levels, the commonality being the style of car, which is capable of speeds up to 150 mph on a road course and almost 100 mph on a circle track like The Bullring. There are subsets in Legends racing, and last year Kwasniewski won the Legends Semi-Pro Class season points title. Jennifer is certain he’s the youngest champion of that class ever at LVMS, but that fact has not been verified – but he was 13 at the time, and drivers must be at least 12 years old to compete. He was also named the LVMS Rookie of the Year, in part because he competed for more than a month with a fractured right arm, his most his most serious injury to date. This year he has built a more than 100-point lead in the Legends Pro division (for drivers who are age 14 or older), and could simply sit out three or four races and still win the series.
“I’ll race anything on two wheels, four wheels, anything,” Kwasniewski says as he preps for his main event appearance, where he was earned the pole (and will keep it this time). “When I’m driving I’m the happiest kid ever.” As he talks cars whiz by on Las Vegas Boulevard, which abuts the track to the east, and it seems comical that a 14-year-old who can pilot a racecar up to 100 miles an hour over 30 laps is not allowed to drive legally on our own death-defying roadways. That he can use a turn indicator and dodge toppled-over pylons would put him in the upper 10th percentile of drivers in Las Vegas.
It’s already an impressive on-paper, on-the-track resume. But you can sense that Dylan comes from a family of achievers – he’s hardly been interviewed by an actual journalist (and that still might be the case), but is crisp and articulate in his responses that feel more, shall we say, grown-up than a common 14-year-old. “I like circle-track racing, but I’m happy anywhere. I like the competition. … It’s fun – but competitive,” he says, grinning. “I’d like to drive the dirt track (the ½-mile dirt oval at LVMS, where open-wheeled sprint cars compete). I was talking to Robby, who is an awesome driver, and he says to drive as much as I can, wherever I can. He says to go as hard and as fast as I can.”
As for last night’s results, Kwasniewski was involved in a dustup on the first green flag of the event, being pinched as he accelerated to start the race, and the field had to restart. He led up until a yellow flag waved over the 28th lap – two to go. At that restart, he held off a hard-pressing Brecken Snow in the No. 6 car, who tried to duck inside at the restart and wrest the lead from Kwasniewski, and through Turns 1 and 2 it seemed Snow might pull off a thrilling comeback victory. But he ran out of track, as they say, and the checked flag waved for the No. 3 car.
| 
|