by Lexi Mills
In my first blog I said I would have some exciting news to share in a couple of weeks. Well, a couple of weeks turned into a few, and I forgot it in my last blog. Many people have asked and I ended up tweeting it before I wrote about it.
Every time I strap into the car, or watch my brother line up in staging for his sprint car main event, my nerves are up the wall. You pray and pray nothing will happen to you, a loved one, or anyone. It hit me hard last year with so many being affected by tragedies in racing. After Kevin Swindell’s wreck at the Knoxville Nationals, we teamed up with the Steve King Foundation to raise money for him at the Jackson Nationals. It was so incredible how many people helped raise money for his recovery. I wanted to bring an event benefiting the Steve King Foundation to the Knoxville Nationals. This year there will be a luncheon with raffle baskets for bid on Thursday, August 11, from 11 A.M.-1 P.M. The luncheon will be under the white tent in the Ideal Ready Mix parking lot across from the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame & Museum. Follow me on my personal Twitter and Facebook accounts for more information!
Now to get to Blog #3! “Sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage and I promise you something great will come of it.” This quote is me to a T. Often, I don’t think I have enough on my plate, and I get crazy ideas to add something else. When I started in the merchandise field in racing, I wasn’t working enough. I wanted to work more, but also learn other sides to racing.
Back in 2014, I was fifteen years old. I was out of racing due to lack of sponsorship when my cousin was running a Micro-Sprint series here in the Midwest. He would run the series by himself, race with the series, all while having a family and raising two daughters. Talk about insane courage, the challenge was never big enough for him! What better way to learn than taking some off his plate and help run a series?
The series was huge at that time, having B Mains at a lot of shows. We didn’t have transponders at that time, so it was just me hand scoring while communicating with the drivers over the race receivers. We ran heat races by passing points, so after heat races I would have to calculate each drivers points and then make the A Main lineup. The features were 20, sometimes 25-lap A Mains, with 20 or more drivers, and one of me. I will be the first to admit I am not perfect, and I know I may have scored a driver incorrectly by a position or two. I would have parents unhappy with me, which is understandable. But that was me with insane courage wanting that heavy pressure. I wouldn’t regret that for a single second, as I learned so much and that’s gotten me to where I am today.
This summer I am juggling working at a local boutique, working for Brian Brown, babysitting, working on this charity event, and who knows whatever else I’ll squeeze in!
The point of this blog is to go after whatever you want in life, take those twenty seconds of insane courage to do something big. No matter how old you are, how big the challenge is, or how scared you are, don’t let anything stop you from doing it! And if you need that push, text, call, or message me! Every good opportunity comes from those twenty seconds of insane courage you take.