It’s been just over a year since the most anticipated debut of a sprint car driver in the area occurred.
When Robby Wolfgang took to the track for the first time, local and national race fans were anxious to see how the young son of Doug Wolfgang - who many consider one of the best drivers in the history of the sport - would fare on the dirt ovals.
Before last year, Robby had competed in motor sports since he was about 8 years old. But the competition involved two wheels rather than four.
He had become an accomplished motocross racer, winning regional titles and qualifying for national events. Then last year he decided to take sprint car owner and long-time family friend, Loren Barstad, up on his offer to drive his car.
Just two weeks after his 16th birthday, Robby raced a sprint car for the first time. For the first month, he continued to race motorcycles as well, before deciding to focus on sprint cars.
“I like everything about racing sprint cars,” he said. “I like driving them. I like the competition and being around the people who were involved in it.”
“I feel a lot safer in a sprint car than on a bike,” said Robby, who suffered a broken arm, leg, collarbone (twice) and a dislocated hip while racing motorcycles. “You’re strapped into a good seat and are protected by a roll cage. On a bike, you’re just out there in the open.”
This season, the uptrend has continued. In a similar amount of races in the 360 sprint cars, Robby has competed at 14 different tracks and scored about a dozen top-five finishes along with three wins - all coming in the last month.
“I think he’s doing all right,” said Doug. “Especially considering that he’s about as ‘green’ as a rookie can be. People who don’t know us well think that he grew up around racing. I quit racing (after a near-fatal crash) in 1997 when he was 5 years old. He hadn’t hardly been to any races until he started driving.”
Like most young drivers, Robby has dreams of racing professionally.
“I’d really like to race an Indy Car,” he said. “To me, they’re pure racing machines.”
“There’s really just a small chance that anything will come of this,” said Doug. “But we just want to do whatever we can to support him and give him an opportunity to move up in racing.”
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