When Paul Blackhurst wasn’t concentrating on the family potato chip business, he did everything in his power to keep his children healthy and happy.
Looking back to his youth there was one nagging lament. He had always wanted to race. Then, an opportunity to rekindle a dream by proxy fell into his lap. A friend had a go-kart for sale and he instantly thought it would be a great Christmas present for his 5-year-old son. Jake Blackhurst had no idea what his father had in store. As he recalled it, “One day my dad just showed up with a go-kart.”
This wasn’t one of those times when a child soon became bored with a once cherished object.
There were opportunities to race near the Blackhurst’s central Illinois home. There was a quarter-mile track minutes away in Peoria, and there was also a kart track adjacent to Spoon River Speedway in Lewiston. Paul Blackhurst soon realized he had signed on to a bit more than he had bargained for.
“A lot of dads raced through their kids,” he said with a laugh, “and I kind of got my boy a chance to do it, but he ended up being the one who wanted to go non-stop. I would have been happy staying home on the weekends, but if it were up to him, we would have raced every day.”
There was a reason for that. Jake Blackhurst is talented. Jake suggests he traveled more when he was in karts than he has done at any other stage in his career.
“When WKA came to the Midwest we thought we would try doing that,” Paul Blackhurst said. “We had a lot of success and he won a bunch of WKA titles. We got hooked up with people like Harold Wiggins and Phantom Racing Chassis and he got us racing out east. I would have never dreamed we would have done that in a go-kart.”
There was no turning back. They had become friends with the Wilson family from Indiana and often traveled the circuit with them. When the Wilsons were ready to move from the Kenyon midget ranks, the Blackhursts purchased a car from them.
It was here that the Blackhursts first encountered Mel and Don Kenyon. In terms of taking the next step forward this was the perfect move.
“We learned so much from them,” Paul Blackhurst said. “They were phenomenal.”
There were many trips to Indiana’s Anderson Speedway in particular, but it was also clear that the Ford Focus was becoming more popular. The search was on to secure a car to take on a new challenge.
With relationships always the key, the Blackhursts leaned on Bob East and Mike Hurst and eventually purchased a former Beast Enterprises house car. This led to even more time on the road.
Jake Blackhurst scored wins at such diverse places as Hickory (N.C.) Motor Speedway, Toledo (Ohio) Speedway and the Indianapolis Speedrome.
When the points were tallied, he was the 2010 USAC Midwest Pavement Focus champion. Adding to the luster of a great year he took a win over a stacked field in the Focus race held in conjunction with the 70th Turkey Night Grand Prix at California’s Irwindale Speedway.
The bulk of Jake’s experience had come on pavement, so naturally his dream was to compete at places like Indianapolis Raceway Park. Yet, if he was going to move to a full-throated midget, he was going to spend a bit more time on dirt.
In 2010, he had a chance to race out of Bryan Clauson’s shop, but in 2011 the Blackhursts decided to go it alone. Hurst helped them secure a Spike midget and Jake was set to focus primarily on dirt for the first time. It went well.
In 2011, he was the POWRI and National Midget Rookie of the Year. The following May, he scored his first win at Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Mo., and finished fourth in the standings.
After time in the midget ranks, Blackhurst had a good sense of where his career should be headed. There was just one big problem — his father had sworn he would never put his son in a sprint car.
“I guess he changed his mind,” Jake said with a laugh.
Paul Blackhurst visited Bernie Stuebgen at Indy Race Parts and suddenly he was a sprint car owner.
“I felt that a winged sprint car required the same kind of finesse as pavement racing,” he said, “and we both loved racing on pavement.”
By the end of 2014, Blackhurst had made a few appearances with MOWA and the following season he devoted the lion’s share of his time to sprint cars.
Nothing beats seat time and in August 2017 he scored his first sprint car win appropriately enough in Peoria.
From that point on a funny thing happened. He began the 2018 season with a Sprint Invaders win at 34 Raceway in West Burlington, Iowa. There was a gap before the first scheduled MOWA race, so he decided to compete with the Interstate Racing Ass’n at Wisconsin’s Beaver Dam Raceway. Not only did he finish on the podium, but he realized that he had truly enjoyed himself and appreciated how the events were officiated.
Comparing notes, the father-and-son duo decided to stick with IRA and later found themselves in an interesting position.
“We ran the first half dozen races or so and we thought it would really stink to drop out of something you were doing so well in,” the younger Blackhurst explained. “The people there were great and it was fun. These were new tracks for me, so we ended up doing the whole thing.”
It was a perfect ending. Surviving a battle with Scotty Thiel, he became the first Illinois-based driver to win the IRA championship since Dave Moulis in 1992, while his father was named IRA’s Mechanic of the Year.
There was no denying it, the fact that this was a family effort made it even more special.
“It was just me and my dad,” Jake said. “Now, as I look back on it, and since I have driven for other people and get more help, it makes you wonder how the heck we did it. It is a lot of work.”
Midway through the 2019 campaign it was clear something had to give. Paul was selling the Kitchen Cooked Potato Chips brand to a larger concern, which proved to be far more difficult than it seemed.
“That was such an undertaking,” he said with a sigh, “Just getting all the information together it was a seven-day week for me. I wouldn’t have had time to go racing.”
There was a bit of sadness, but the move was inevitable. “It has become hard for a family business to survive in corporate America,” he said. “I had a good relationship with Kroger, but we thought it was for the best.”
Paul Blackhurst also believed it was time for his son to branch out.
“When we were slowing down, I didn’t want to slow down,” Jake Blackhurst said.
A lifeline was offered by the Ozzie Motorsports team of Ozzie Weisner and Fran O’Brien, and he was able to win for his new squad. Today, he calls his time with this team “a blessing. They are great people and we are still good friends.”
After watching Bill Balog claim the IRA title in 2019 and 2020, Blackhurst was afforded a great chance to get back on top.
Joining forces with the highly successful Rhine Auto Parts team led by Mike Urner, Blackhurst was the only IRA driver to start all 27 features and outdistanced Scotty Neitzel to earn his second championship in 2021.
In 2022, Blackhurst and Urner combined for a third-place finish in the IRA standings with three victories. However, Urner decided to shut his team down.
“I thought I would be on the other side of the grandstands just watching,” Blackhurst said.
His anxiety aside, most surmised he was too good to sit on the sidelines for long. Enter NineSix Motorsports, a team led by Levi Curry and Nathan Charron. Their shop is located in the tiny burg of Hartsburg, Ill., only 35 miles from Blackhurst’s Bartonville home.
The partnership started innocently enough. Blackhurst received a text asking if he might be interested in doing a couple of races. Then in his words, “some resources came through and we have a couple of good sponsors. Then, Mike Urner loaned us an extra motor which is a huge help, and this turned into more than I thought it could be.”
This team is a quintessential IRA operation. These are three talented young men trying to make their mark in racing. All have lofty goals.
“Sprint car racing is as good as it has ever been for a long time and, of course, I would love the chance to race with the Outlaws or High Limit,” Blackhurst said.
It is likely a sentiment his entire team shares, yet Blackhurst is a carpenter, Curry is a lineman for the power company Ameren and a small business owner, while Charron is the manager of a fertilizer plant. Getting time away is difficult, so for the moment their attention is on the IRA championship.
So far, so good. Blackhurst used three consecutive third-place finishes to start the year to get to the top of the points in the early going.
“It seems like we have had the car to win most nights,” he said. “But the driver might have been a little rusty at the start of the year. Once we get back to two race weekends things will sharpen back up and come together. I think we are good enough now to where we can put something together very shortly.”
As for a third IRA title, he knows his friend Scotty Thiel will be tough and he realizes that Travis Arenz has shown speed in the early going.
More than anything Blackhurst is just happy to be racing. “I love it,” he said with a laugh. “I plan to do it until I can’t walk.”
THIS ARTICLE IS REPOSTED FROM THE June 19 EDITION OF SPEED SPORT INSIDER
SPEED SPORT Insider is the ad-free premium extension of SPEEDSPORT.com. Insider is dedicated to the best and brightest in motorsports journalism – created by the best writers, photographers and reporters in the business. From veteran Hall of Fame writers like Bones Bourcier, Dave Argabright, Pat Sullivan, Keith Waltz, Ralph Sheheen and Editor in Chief Mike Kerchner, to behind the scenes SPEED SPORT reporters such as David Hoffman, Nathan Solomon and more.
By subscribing to Insider, you not only get exclusive access to this premium content, but you support the journalists that are vital to telling the stories that matter most. Subscriptions are just $5/mo or $44.95 for an entire year. View plans and details.
SPECIAL OFFER! Subscribe now with this link and save $5.00!
