By T.J. Buffenbarger
(August 15, 2024) — The story of Kelby Watt this year could be billed as a young driver navigating their way through the sprint car ecosystem down an unexpected, winding road through the 2024 season using an extraordinary amount of persistence that led to unexpected opportunities.
In what was supposed to be a focused effort for the 23 year old driver from Adel, Iowa at his home track in a family-owned entry turned into a month on the road with some of the best professional sprint car drivers on the planet, having that opportunity go away without any warning, and being persistent enough to receive an opportunity to drive for one of the area’s best teams for a weekend.
Originally Watt’s season was supposed be a building block on previous experiences spent at his home track, Knoxville Raceway in Knoxville, Iowa.
“The plan was just to run the 410, championship series at Knoxville with my family car and go for rookie of the year. Hopefully at least run well in that and maybe turn some heads and acquire another engine somehow or get a ride and something and be able to race more than just those 20 races.”
After all his previous inquiries were declined, Watt took a chance to send one more message to Bill Rose following the news he was going to be out of the driver’s seat for an extended period after a crash at Fremont Speedway over Memorial Day weekend.
“I saw a Facebook post from (Rose) talking about his injury at Fremont, and that at the bottom of this post it said Bill was going to be out for a good amount of time while he’s recovering. I really figured that he had already had someone probably kind of tabbed for the ride, but Facebook messaged him and then a good friend of mine had Bill’s girlfriend Amanda’s phone number, so I called her and left her a message.
Watt didn’t hear back right away, but a couple of days later Watt received a message from Rose asking him to make a phone call later. After that Watt was packing up to race at Cedar Lake Speedway in New Richmond, Wisconsin that weekend.
The only sticky point was the new job at Rev-Tech in Des Moines, Iowa Watt had started just a couple of months before to drive Rose’s race car. Thankfully for Watt, he had worked there previously in college and was willing to retain him as an employee while allowing Watt to pursue his passion.
“I interned there a couple years throughout college,” said Watt of the Rev-Tech so they kind of already knew me and we had a good relationship. Our plan for this start of my professional career in engineering was an agreement where if I had some racing obligations on the weekend, I could take off a little early on Friday or if I was racing at Huset’s on Sunday I could come in a little later on Monday.”
Taking on Rose’s ride while working a full-time position was a little more ambitious than the occasional Friday or Sunday race, Watt received nothing but encouragement.
“I ended up taking a lot of days off within a short amount of time. But they were cool about it and totally understood,” said Watt. “Some of my co-workers have been involved in racing throughout their careers too. So, I’m fortunate to be able to travel and keep a job when I come back home.”
The month on the road for Watt was a learning experience far different than the one he had in engineering at Iowa State. From the driving to the business side, Watt was getting a master class in professional sprint car racing while going to racetracks he had only seen on video.
“Every single track that we had raced at in those 13 nights with the World of Outlaws other than Cedar Lake I had never been to it, and I’d only been there once before,” said Watt. All these experiences were completely new to me. I’d have the nerves of learning a new track around a bunch of people that have raced at the track dozens of times before.”
The other aspect Watt had to get used to was having a larger number of drivers in the field that were racing to put food on the table, which ramped up the aggression level more than he was used to seeing on a weekly basis at Knoxville.
“It was super eye opening,” said Watt of the close racing on the World of Outlaws tour. “These guys drive totally different than on a local level at Knoxville. The drivers are a lot more aggressive and give you a lot less space.”
Watt also was able to get more experience about what it’s like to be a professional race car driver that had to keep all the obligations attended to while staying focused on driving the race car.
“I learned a ton about just about how World of Outlaws tour works. From running an operation on the tour, how to get and keep sponsors, how the team format works. There’s just so many people involved with an operation like that. Merchandise people, marketing people, is just crazy.”
Watt’s tenure with the Rose team ended as unexpectedly as it began after parting ways the week of the Knoxville Nationals. One bright spot in the situation was Watt’s family car already prepared to race some events not sanctioned by the World of Outlaws.
“Luckily, my crew chief here back home, Jeff Woodruff, had already worked on getting the car prepared the week before Pevely,” said Watt. We just kind of had to work on some engine stuff, tires and a bunch of other little things here and there. Without him, we would have really struggled to even be able to put a car on the track.”
While Watt’s Knoxville Nationals ended in the D-Main on Saturday, the next step was figuring out what was next. With the family’s engine at the end of its rebuild cycle, the picture of the remainder of the year clouding the picture, another chance message sent to a race team ended up bearing fruit in the form of TKS Motorsports owner Troy Renfro.
“I reached out to Troy because of seeing Chase Randall’s Facebook post,” Randall said of seeing the news that TKS and Randall had parted ways, so I did exact same thing I did with Bill Rose. I picked up the phone right away and tried to make some calls.”
Watt was unsure if he would be a candidate for the vacancy, but after a conversation Watt found himself bolting his seat at the team’s shop, where the location came as a big surprise once Renfro sent him the address.
“I never knew that Troy’s shop was literally two blocks away,” said Watt of the TKS team’s proximity to his day job. “It would work out so well logistically if we could keep this going after this weekend. I could roll right over there and start helping work on the car every night.”
For now, Watt will have to settle for this weekend, but one never knows where the winding road might take him and could land him in a position racing for another team close to home.