With Teen Race at Hawkeye Downs, Iowa BIG plans for the future of racing

CEDAR RAPIDS — Budgeting, event planning, fundraising, marketing — and racing.

Iowa BIG returned to Hawkeye Downs Speedway last Sunday for its second annual Teen Race.

Seven students from Iowa BIG (a public school program shared by the Cedar Rapids and College Community Schools that promotes teaching students “21st Century Skills”) worked in collaboration with the Hawkeye Downs staff to coordinate the event, serving as an opportunity for teenagers to experience racing on an asphalt track.

Competition was open to teen drivers with a valid Iowa driver’s license or Iowa minor school license.

“About three years ago, Hawkeye Downs came to Iowa BIG and said ‘hey, we need help getting teens out at the racetrack,’” Nate Pruett, Iowa BIG adviser said. “‘We need to get younger people involved or else we're not going to have people in the future interested in racing.’”

Last summer, with the help of HD race director Brian Gibson and executive director Jen Lawrence, the program was able to put its first Teen Race together. According to Pruett, “around 10 to 12” local teenagers competed using borrowed enduro cars.

“Last year, since it kind of started in December, it was just a wing and a prayer,” Pruett said. “We got lucky and some current enduro racers allowed us to use their cars.

“This time, we had the entire year to set it up and plan it, and the focus was largely on, ‘we need our own cars — we can't borrow cars from the racers every year.’”

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Lydia Nichols (Washington High School), Maddox Rowley (Prairie), Will Wray (Prairie), Myah Rausch (Prairie), Sadie Rebman (Prairie), Aiden Lane (Prairie) and Riley Edwards (Jefferson) took it to a new level.

“This team was able to pitch the Teen Race sponsorship packages to a number of different companies here in Cedar Rapids, and they were able to raise about $25,000 in order to go out and buy the cars,” Pruett said. “We had some pretty impressive Cedar Rapids players that they (the students) reached out to and got buy-in on putting the money together for the packages.”

The “players” that sponsored cars included CRST, Hy-Vee, Modern Companies, Sadler Power Train and Van Meter.

“Racing in general, for me, is the best aspect,” said Rowley, who regularly competes in enduro races at HD. “But I really liked actually going out to the businesses and talking to all those people.”

So, instead of racing enduros, Sunday’s participants were able to drive in a collection of “professionally wrapped” Chevy Cavaliers and Pontiac Sunfires.

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“This project is everything that you would want to experience within the work field before you go into the actual work field,” Nichols said. “You're budgeting, you're marketing, you're doing literally everything that has to do with work.”

Nichols served as Sunday’s race director. She credits the Iowa BIG program and her experiences in it, like coordinating Sunday’s race, for securing her first management job.

“I think it prepares me for everything that I have in the future,” Nichols said. “It has helped me land a lot of interviews and even an assistant manager job.”

Nichols, entering her freshman year at the University of Iowa to study business, is now the assistant manager of operations at the Coralville Hy-Vee.

Leading up to the race, Gibson and his team met with participants to explain the racing process and provide strategy and safety tips.

“There's a good two hours of kind of getting to know and understand things and also meeting everybody,” Pruett said. “So, it's more than just the race. It's the whole experience of being out at Hawkeye Downs.”

As for vehicle maintenance and preparation, students had help and support from HD and several local businesses.

“There was a certain part of this whole thing that Hawkeye Downs handled, because the kids can only be with Iowa BIG for about two hours a day and then they have to go back and do their other classes,” Pruett said.

The event structure was three qualifying races, two heats per race of four cars per heat, with one championship feature race to determine the winner.

“The idea planning and processing how we're going to go through with this, that was really fun,” Wray said. “I’m glad a lot of people out there got to experience what we've gone through and enjoyed the race.”

As for the competition, 18 teens competed with Jacob Bult, 17, from Cedar Rapids Washington taking home the “Summer 2023 Iowa BIG Annual Teen Race Trophy.”

“The experience was great, and the adrenaline rush was really fun,” Bult said. “Getting to go fast, you can’t do that on the highway.

“It’s definitely something I would do again. I’d recommend it to a lot of people.”

“The premise of the entire race is to attract and draw kids, families, et cetera that normally aren't a part of the Hawkeye Downs world, and hopefully increase interest in Hawkeye Downs and, obviously racing as well,” Pruett said. “We asked, ‘Can we make a footprint?’ And we did.”

Pruett said Iowa BIG plans to host another Teen Race at HD in the fall.