Ricky Lewis, a 14-year-old from Oxnard, won a national Bandoleros qualifying race at Kern County Raceway in Bakersfield several weeks ago!

The race attracted aspiring drivers from all over the western United States. Drivers from Nevada and Arizona were competing for a spot in a national race for Bandoleros teams in North Carolina. Only the top drivers were invited to the national race.

Lewis, who races his Bandoleros car regularly at the Irwindale Event Center and is the leader in the Mod Lites division at Ventura Raceway, didn’t have the fastest car in qualifying, but he maneuvered his car to the front and won the race after starting in fourth place.

During his victory lap, the driver of the third-place car sped through the infield and clipped Lewis’ car spinning him out.

“We were happy, but I don’t know what he was thinking,” Lewis said. “They are supposedly banned from that track. That wasn’t their first offense.”

Lewis shrugged off the indiscretion. It takes a lot more than a sore loser to rattle the young race car driver. It takes more than a reckless rival to discourage Lewis from pursuing a career in auto racing.

Lewis’ passion for racing started when he was five, the first time he stepped into a race car.

“When he was 10 months old, when he would crawl, he would crawl with a VCR (tape) and take the VCR and put it in to watch Sprint Cars go around and hit rewind,” said Rick Lewis Jr., Ricky’s father. “He would do that for six or eight, 10 hours, just watch Sprint Cars go round and round, before he could even walk.”

Born to race!

Before Ricky was born, his parents watched Sprint cars race at Perris Auto Speedway on a regular basis. They used to race as a team at Ventura Raceway and continued to follow auto racing at race tracks throughout Southern California.

Ricky’s dad said his son was not very active when his wife was pregnant with him.

“We found out it was because his umbilical cord was around his neck four times, so he had no room to move,” Rick Lewis Jr. said. “When we would go to Perris every weekend to watch the Sprint cars, the 410s, those big 800 horsepower cars, as all 20 of them came around to take the checkered, the roar of that, he would just go nuts inside her stomach. He would just roll and rumble.”

Rick Lewis said his son was born blue. The doctor who delivered him said he was dead. Rick asked if he could hold his son’s hand. When he did, his son grabbed his father’s finger and squeezed it. That’s when Rick insisted that his son was alive.

Ricky was born with a condition called nuchal cord. It is when the umbilical cord is wrapped around the newborn’s neck at birth. According to research conducted by the March of Dimes, about 25 percent of babies are born with nuchal cord. The research also concluded that babies with a nuchal cord are generally healthy.

Ricky’s birth was more complicated than the normal nuchal cord delivery. He was deprived of oxygen during the birth and his condition upon delivery was grave. Only 1.5 out of 1,000 deliveries lead to stillbirth, according to Dr. Jason H. Collins at The Pregnancy Institute. In Ricky’s case, he had to be revived at birth.
Ricky not only survived, he thrived.

Life in the fast lanes

Ricky Lewis has won four of the six Bandoleros races at the Irwindale Event Center, including the race last Saturday night.

He leads the Bandoleros standings at Irwindale by 20-points over Ryan Vargas from La Mirada. Ryan Dunkleberger from Simi Valley is in fourth place in the Bandoleros standings at Irwindale, 60-points behind Lewis.

“The summer’s been going good,” Ricky said. “In the Bando, we’ve had a lot of good luck. It doesn’t take a lot of driver to drive this track. Mainly, who has the best car is going to win the race.”

He has yet to finish worse than third at Irwindale. He won the first two races of the season in a field that regularly has 12 to 16 cars on the starting grid.

“If we can continue to give him a good car, and everything’s equal, his driving skills seems to put him to the front,” Rick Lewis said. “He’s brought his dirt experience to this. When this car gets loose, he’s in his element, where everybody else kind of panics. As long as I can continue to give him a competitive car, he should be able to win this championship.”

Ricky also leads the Mod Lites standings at Ventura Raceway. He has won four of the six races with two heat wins and has a 45-point lead over Dave Dotson.

“It’s always a goal, you always want to be leading the points midway through the season, especially this far in the season, you don’t have many races to catch up,” Ricky said. “If you make a mistake this late in the season, it’s hard to catch back up to the lead, because you don’t have many races to do it in.”

Ricky made his debut in the Race Trucks division at Irwindale last Saturday night. He was the top rookie and finished in tenth place.

“The truck is a big step, a big step,” said Ricky, who is home-schooled because of his racing schedule. “The truck works for you. The biggest, hardest part is seeing the lines run, hitting your marks every lap.”

The results in the trucks race were better than his dad expected. Rick Lewis said his son wanted to stay on the lead lap and maybe pass one truck during the race. Ricky drove his way through a couple crashes and brought the truck to the finish line in the top-ten.

“He looks at this truck as a learning experience,” Rick Lewis said. “He realizes he’s not going to be the fastest one out here. He says, ‘My goal tonight is to not get lapped.’
“He’s looking to the truck as a stepping stone to get into something faster. He wants to go to NASCAR and he knows dad doesn’t have the money. We need sponsors. Whoever teams up with this kid, whether it’s the truck, a late model, a modified, he’s going to find a winner. That’s all he wants to do is drive a car.”

Ricky said he is focused on winning championships at Irwindale and Ventura Raceway.

“Championships speak louder than main-event wins in my eyes,” he said.

Ricky Lewis is our next guest on Fan4Racing Fan2Fan NASCAR-NHRA Talk, Monday, September 9th at 9pm ET. Call 347-996-5176 to interact with Ricky Lewis during the LIVE broadcast Q&A segment.