The right guidance goes a long way toward creating tomorrow’s racing stars.

Driver development programs are not a new concept, although in recent years, it seems the number of such programs has exploded. Part of that perception stems from high-profile efforts with the full backing of sanctions, auto manufacturers, and sponsors, such as the NASCAR Drive for Diversity Program operated in conjunction with Rev Racing.
The goals of Drive for Diversity and similar programs are fairly straightforward: to increase participation from traditionally under-represented groups, while attracting an expanded, younger demographic of fans along the way.
But the new wave of driver development programs is coming at the issue from a lot of different directions, with a variety of motivations behind the programs. Whatever the reasons behind establishing these pathways to success, all are dedicated to creating opportunities for the next generation of drivers. Some of these programs are even dedicated to developing entire race teams or offering a leg up to experienced racers looking to jump to the next level. Our sources offered insight into what it takes to put drivers on the winning path, and their own reasons for launching their programs.

Motivated Drivers, Motivated Programs

JCM Racing in Brownsburg, Indiana, is a multi-car NHRA team that established the JCM Racing Driver Development Program in 2023. “Basically, the intent of the program is to try to develop young people into better people, for one thing, and also give those that have a little passion for racing the opportunity to race,” said team owner Joe Maynard. “So what we decided was, we’d try to find one driver in each division and help them financially and give them access to our professional drivers—Tony Schumacher— crew chiefs if they need input on that kind of stuff, just the opportunity for them to talk, meet, see, pick up a phone, and call. We now have Ida Zetterström [2023 FIA Top Fuel World Champion, and current NHRA Top Fuel competitor] on our team. She works very well with some of the females. She’s already had good conversations with them.”
The Kulwicki Driver Development Program (KDDP) in Concord, North Carolina, was established in honor of the late Alan Kulwicki, the 1992 NASCAR Winston Cup champion and NASCAR Hall of Famer. “The whole beginning of the program could be traced back to around 2013, when Thelma Kulwicki, Alan’s stepmom, was looking around trying to figure out what she could do with the money that was left over in his estate,” said Tom Roberts, executive director of KDDP and a personal friend of Alan’s. “She wanted to do something that would continue his memory and legendary status by assisting in some way a grassroots racer or racers.”
The KDDP program was up and running in 2014. In honoring Kulwicki, the number 7, his racing number, plays a prominent role. “The seven finalist drivers get a $7,777 stipend. We compete for seven months, April 1 through October 31. The irony of that is that the first day of our annual competition, on April 1, is also the same day that we lost Alan. I didn’t think about that at first, but it’s almost like an annual, perpetual reawakening of Alan through his drivers through the years.
“Those seven drivers then compete for the grand prize, the Kulwicki Cup, which is seven times the finalist stipend—$54,439,” continued Roberts. “Plus, support for PR, business networking, even a priest if you need him.”
Antron Brown, three-time NHRA Top Fuel champion, launched the AB Motorsports Accelerate program in 2023, although he had been advising up-and-coming racers long before that. For Brown, his own experiences in breaking into racing were still fresh on his mind. “I created it because I know how hard it was when I first started,” he said. “We have driver development underneath our Accelerate program, but it’s actually a program to do a lot more than just develop drivers. It actually helps to develop race teams, to help people out on the marketing side, to help people put sponsorship decks together. We work with different race teams and people on all different levels to help them develop their social media.
“We had all these different assets I’d invested in,” continued Brown. “I thought, ‘You know what? We developed all this that we can use to help other people out on multiple levels.’ On the driver side, I can help drivers on their mindset, their driving. I’ve been doing it for years. And then I can help other race teams out on the sponsorship side. Not just to help them get sponsorship, but to help them retain and keep the sponsorship relationship healthy. A lot of people get sponsors and can’t keep them because they don’t know what it takes to keep them. We help on all those facets. Everybody’s got driver development programs, putting people in cars. We’ve got that, but our program is so much more. You come here and we help people on all different levels to accelerate them in the direction they want to get accelerated in.”

For Venturini Motorsports in Concord, North Carolina, the origins of its ARCA-focused driver development program began out of necessity. “We were more like a mom-and-pop type race team from pretty much when my dad [Bill Sr.] drove, when I drove, right to the end of my career,” said Billy Venturini. “I kind of had to come to the realization I wasn’t going to be a Cup driver. Our funds were tight, and we got to the point we were just extended too much to try to keep racing.”
Fortunately, his friendship with JD Gibbs opened doors to shifting the business to driver development. Joe Gibbs Racing had one of the early diversity programs and was looking to expand its reach into ARCA. The Venturini family’s deep racing experience in ARCA proved just the right fit, and the driver development program was born. The early years weren’t easy, but the program’s big breakthrough occurred in 2008, when it fielded Joey Logano at Rockingham.
“That’s the day, without a doubt, that put us on the map in driver development. That race was super-hyped. It was the reopening of Rockingham,” Venturini recalled. “It was the highest paying race they’d ever had in ARCA. It paid something like $34,000 to win. We were down there with Joey and honestly, we killed them. We were fastest in practice, we sat on the pole, led 260 laps, and at one point lapped the entire field but one car. So not only did we win, but we got style points. It was such an ass-kicking that you couldn’t deny what you saw. We were immediately on the map.”

Lessons Learned

Typically, there are two major facets of driver development: on-track development, and navigating off-track relationships with sponsors, fans, and media. How each of these is weighted varies from program to program. Some programs are conducted in-house with specific training regimens, while others offer financial and equipment assistance to existing family race teams along with access to accomplished drivers, experienced pit crews, and marketing pros.
Venturini Motorsports serves as Toyota Racing Development’s (TRD) official driver development program in the ARCA series. They sometimes funnel drivers into the Toyota Driver Development (TD2) program, and Toyota frequently sends drivers to Venturini Motorsports for stock car experience. The resources available from a major manufacturer like Toyota can make a huge difference for a driver climbing the competition ladder.
“Once they are involved with us, if they run half the season or more, they end up getting a lot of Toyota development perks,” Venturini said. “With Toyota we have trainers, nutritionists, a whole training facility with heat rooms, and different analytics we run through like breathing tests, things like that. They can tell you how many calories to eat for how many your body is burning. There’s all kinds of stuff they monitor. It’s really high-tech stuff.
“With the simulator, we can break down their driving so well. I can talk about angles of entry, and we’ve got brake pressures, lifting points, and steering wheel angles. I’ve got an engineer who basically runs computer stuff for us all the time. And we can break everything down and really show them exactly.
“These drivers have never had tools like this until they’ve been here. Now we can hone their skills,” Venturini continued. “It’s not only a driver simulation, it’s a car simulation. My race car is the race car you’re running in there. All my stuff is measured by Toyota, and all my pieces that go on the car are serial numbered and measured, and then the computer literally puts the car together for us in the program. Then we can make changes to the car. They’re driving our race car in the simulator, the exact race car they’re going to drive.”

AB Motorsports’ Accelerate program includes young drivers breaking into the sport, but Brown has cast a wider net to include experienced racers looking to move to different series or start their own teams, even athletes in other sports. Among the people Brown has advised are Pro Stock Motorcycle racer Angelle Sampey as she shifts to A/Fuel Dragster competition, and Shawn Reed as he started up his Top Fuel team.
“It’s different for everybody,” Brown said, “You have a lot of people out there already doing it, but then they’re looking at how to go to the next level. To go to the next level, they don’t know what it takes, they don’t even know what kind of budget it takes to do it. They have a set price in their mind. Then when they see it, they go, ‘Oh, I didn’t even realize. I didn’t realize this; I didn’t realize that.’ And there’s no standard. There’s no place to go. There’s no ‘Racing for Dummies’ out there, there’s no ‘CliffsNotes’ for you to go do it. That’s kind of what the AB Accelerate program was all about, bringing that so we could make a lot of people successful in motorsports.”
Off-track guidance plays a crucial role in driver development, particularly for younger drivers in the age of social media. “We’ve had some things maybe that the look wasn’t correct, or their social media wasn’t becoming to them, or not reflective of what they want to be or what we want them to be,” Maynard said. “Those have been the biggest challenges, my social media folks getting with people and saying, ‘That photo is not what you want out there, or you need to change your look, your talk, your feel.’ Those kinds of things. Most of these kids are great kids, and their parents are good people.”
Mindset is often just as important, if not more so, than mastering the nuts and bolts of race car operation. “I feel like I’m probably as much a sports psychologist as I am a team owner, or ex-crew chief, or ex-driver,” Venturini said. “Just teaching them about all the trials and tribulations that go into this, teaching them what really needs to be done for it. We talk about the fear of failing. What holds drivers back? Honestly, most drivers that fail, they stop themselves. They can’t get out of their own way because they get worried about not making it. So we openly talk about it. Because that’s so taboo, no other place wants to even talk about it. We talk about the dream of being a race car driver and how being fearful of failing is probably going to make sure you fail.
“We try to keep them loose, try to keep them in the right mind of processing their situations, not letting the moment get too big,” Venturini added. “Every now and then they need to be told to get out of their own head. They’re young drivers and they want this so bad.”

Tomorrow’s Stars

Although driver development programs work to create tomorrow’s racing stars, it usually doesn’t take long to see the results. In many cases, tomorrow is here today.
Waylon Bennett represents JCM Racing’s Driver Development Program for NHRA Division 2. As this was being written, he won the NHRA Summit Jr. Drag Racing League National Shootout at zMAX Dragway on April 28.

At KDDP, school alumni grabbed all the top positions at Slinger Super Speedway for the 2024 ASA Midwest Tour season opener. “Ty Majeski, who was our inaugural 2015 Kulwicki Cup Champion, he won the race, and of course, celebrated with a Polish victory lap in tribute to Alan,” Roberts said. “Finishing second was Max Kahler, who is a 2024 KDDP finalist. Finishing third was Luke Fenhaus, who was the 2021 Kulwicki Cup champion. Finishing fourth was Alex Prunty, who also established a new track qualifying record there. Alex was our 2016 Kulwicki Cup champion. Positions one through four were all Kulwicki Cup alumni or current drivers.”
Through the 2023 season, 41 drivers have gone through the KDDP program, competing in 1,260 races and recording 205 wins, according to KDDP.
Natural talent, of course, is a decisive factor in which racers make it to the top. But driver training can be the X-factor that levels the playing field. “At the end of the day, the driver still has to be able to do it. You can train all you want, but there are still some people who drive cars better than others. We can close that gap a whole lot better than they used to be able to,” Venturini said.
“You can tell when someone’s special,” he added. “We can make someone definitely really good, but to be what we would call ‘Sunday good,’ you can spot that the first day they walk in the door. Stalling out on Saturday isn’t getting all the way there. If you’re really going to be successful out of this place, you’re racing on Sunday.”

Signing Up

Not surprisingly, being accepted by a driver development program is a competitive endeavor. “We have a line of people calling us. We have way more people calling us than we have availability,” said Billy Venturini of Venturini Motorsports, Concord, North Carolina. “It’s a great problem to have. This is not like it was in the struggling times of yesteryear. We’re in high demand, but we do nothing but Toyota-affiliated drivers. Not every driver who comes in is Toyota affiliated, but if I find them, they become Toyota affiliated just by being with me.”
At the Kulwicki Driver Development Program (KDDP) in Concord, North Carolina, selection of the finalists is a detailed and involved process. “We do Zoom calls with our interviewing process for applicants. We will name 15 semi-finalists and deduce seven finalists from that every year,” KDDP’s Tom Roberts said.
“It’s all based on application and review,” he continued. “Each December we open up applications. People can apply online and then the board/voting panel will take all the applications and put them in spreadsheets. All the voters get to review the applicants. Then we have Zoom calls among the voters, and each of the seven voters submits their top 15 out of all the applications we receive, and then by virtue of that vote we establish 15 semi-finalists. Each one of them has a Zoom interview with the board. After that concludes, the voting panel reconvenes and votes again. That’s how we select our seven finalists.” —Steve Statham

SOURCES

AB Motorsports Accelerate
antronbrown.com/accelerate/
JCM Racing Driver Development Program
jcmnitro.com/driver-development
Kulwicki Driver Development Program
kulwickiddp.com
Venturini Motorsports Driver Development
venturinimotorsports.com/driver-development/