Much like the gentlemanly agreement Dale Earnhardt Jr. brokered as a youngster with Rick Hendrick, Coleman Pressley also negotiated a contract to go NASCAR racing on a napkin.
At 8 years old, the third generation racer sat with Tad Geschickter of JTG Racing over dinner and told him he wanted to drive for his team, the same team his father Robert Pressley drove for part of his Nationwide Series career in the No. 59 car.
“We were joking around really, but I told him to sign the napkin and he did. He remembered signing it too and said he has it stored away someplace,” said 19-year-old Pressley, who was hired two seasons ago by JTG Racing as a development driver and is battling for NASCAR’s Whelen All-American Series national championship.
In his second full season racing Late Model cars in the Southeast, Pressley has seven wins in 18 starts this season running his family-owned-JTG Racing assisted No. 59 Pressley Racing machine.
As the development driver for JTG Racing, Pressley took a job as a mechanic in the Harrisburg, N.C. shop Monday through Friday and helps with the Nationwide Series cars of Marcos Ambrose and Kelly Bires.
JTG co-owner Jodi Geschickter said Pressley has a bright future with the team.
Pressley enjoys his job at the shop, because it allows him to interact with drivers Bires and Ambrose, whose cars Pressley may drive in the near future.
“I’m able to see the progress the team has made this year and understand how the cars are running,” said Pressley who assembles parts that go on the car, helps install the engines and help with the setups. “It’s also a way for me to show how dedicated I am to my career and that I’m willing to do whatever it takes to be successful.”
And likely the biggest key to his success is, and will be, his father’s coaching, Pressley added.
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