A Kennesaw State student looks to continue to pursue her dream of becoming a professional race car driver after a critical health scare.
Lexi Gay, 21, sat down with us to talk about her path to becoming a professional race car driver, her early beginnings as a 13-year old in an adult’s world and her goal to return to the track following a battle with cancer.
Justin: “So give me a little bit of backstory about how you got started racing. What drew you to the sport? What made you get involved? How did you get involved?”
Lexi: “So I started racing when I was 12 years old. My whole family is first-gen racers. My brother started racing these cars called ‘quarter midgets’ when he was probably like eight years old, and I had no interest, like, at all. I was always the little sister who would show up to the race track to make friends. When I got a little older, I realized ‘hey, maybe I want to try this!’ I’m a super competitive person and had a lot of friends in the motorsports industry at this point from my brother. I started racing these small cars called ‘bandoleros’ at Atlanta Motor Speedway when I was 12 and really fell in love with the sport. I won my first race and was pretty much hooked from there. I received my NASCAR license when I was 13 years old, and signed my first title sponsor when I was 14. I got picked up by Toyota Racing when I was 16, and then by Richard Petty Motorsports when I was 17.”
J: “I can’t imagine being 14 or 15 with all these sponsors. You mentioned you have your NASCAR license…have you raced in any televised events?”
L: “Whenever I got picked up by Toyota Racing, I was one of eight drivers picked up across the whole United States. They flew me out to California, and they basically did a driver combine. They lined us all up, and gave us all baseline setup cars, and wanted to see what we could do with them. After that combine race, Toyota signed me for eight or nine races for the rest of the season. I was fully funded by Toyota, and every weekend I would race in California and Arizona. So every week, I would fly home on a Sunday, and fly back out on a Wednesday. Some of those races were on MavTV, and we did some races up in Tennessee that were on MavTV too, and also on Fox Sports One.”
J: “So was this during the summer, or were you actively in school while being flown across the country to race?”
L: “Yeah, I was still in school. I was pulled out of public school in seventh grade to go race full time, and everyone was like, ‘Are you serious? That’s what you’re gonna do?’ And I was homeschooled so I was like, yeah I’ll be a homeschool kid, no problem. Our season was from the end of March or early April all the way until the end of October or early November, so we raced a majority of the year every weekend.”
J: “As a teenager in late middle school and early high school, were you doing all of this by yourself, or were your parents or an agency helping you?”
L: “I had been doing my own marketing since I was 13, so when I walked into my first business meeting for this company called Gordos Cheese Dip. It was kind of crazy. Doing all of this marketing so young helped me gather a fanbase and a following early on. My mom would always be on Twitter when I was racing; she’s my backbone.”
J: “What is your ultimate goal in racing? What would make all of this worth it?”
L: “Right before I was picked up by Richard Petty, I was diagnosed with cancer when I was 17. It was a major shock because I was totally fine; they found it at a yearly annual checkup. I had my surgery that December, which was luckily the offseason from racing. I was cleared by my doctors to start racing again in March for the next season, but I was having trouble with the medication and trying to readjust my body again. So for the last year or two, we’ve paused my racing to really try to get my health back on track and get me back into the racing world.”
J: “Well I’m certainly glad to hear that you’re feeling better. What advice do you have for anybody trying to break into the industry?”
L: “Never give up. I had those days where I felt super down and like I couldn’t do it. Give yourself time to be upset and to struggle, but remember to pick yourself up and keep pushing. After being diagnosed with cancer and losing my whole ride to NASCAR, it was a huge shock to me. I questioned my life for so long, like ‘Why is this happening to me now?’ But at the end of the day, strength and determination will take you so far. You never know what opportunity is right around the corner if you just keep going.”
