When you look back to the time when David Abreu asked Tanner Thorson if he wanted a career in racing, it is a question that takes on different characters.
When you look back to the time when David Abreu asked Tanner Thorson if he wanted to try to make a career in racing, it is a question that takes on a different character depending on one‘s age.
Early in a career it is the competition itself that matters. Everything else is secondary.
Then comes a time when one ponders how bills will be paid and what the future will look like a decade or two down the road.
As a result, when Toyota offered some opportunities for Thorson to do some work in stock cars, he was prepared to give it a go.
In 2016 he raced with ARCA at the Springfield Mile and did a credible job. More impressive were his performances on the pavement.
While the CRA stock car series may not garner as much national attention as other full-bodied series, the list of former winners is full of well-known names. The cars are far faster than ARCA machines and race at some high-profile tracks.
Given a shot with David Gilliland‘s team, Thorson showed plenty of promise. His first chance came at Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis, where he started scratch on the field and moved forward for a 10th-place finish.
It got better. In two more starts in North Carolina, he finished third at Orange County Speedway and fifth at Concord Speedway.
In 2017, he was again pulled in several directions. Back with Keith Kunz, he was able to muster a fourth-place finish in USAC points and scored two wins. Also active with POWRi, Thorson made 13 starts, won four times, and added 11 top-fives for good measure.
To continue to hone his stock car skills, he raced for the Bond Suss development team. Still with Toyota power, he was with a group which had also worked with Christopher Bell, as well as NASCAR driver Erik Jones.
Once again, racing at some of the storied southeast bullrings he shined, with two top-five finishes in five starts, including a runner-up finish at Caraway Speedway.
It was time to make a career move.
He was now firmly committed to spending more time in winged sprint cars, which made some of USAC‘s core fans unreasonably sore.
The other big news was that he was signed by Austin Dillon‘s Team Dillon Management group and, from there, he would leave Toyota and begin racing Chevrolet-powered trucks with NASCAR.
Paired with owner Randy Young and crew chief Andrew Abbott, he was able to compete in about half of the season‘s schedule, including stops at Texas Motor Speedway, Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway and Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway.
Suffice it to say, Thorson learned a lot about racing at that level and what one needs to get to the top.
“This is the big picture,” he said. “Our equipment was good, Chevy was behind us, but to do well it takes everything. It includes the people behind you. I had a rookie crew chief who had a rookie driver, and that isn‘t going to work. It‘s a tough world out there; I learned that after just 12 races. I hope some people understand that. I mean, there are people who will just hop into everything.
“I know you have to be relevant, but to be really relevant you have to win.”
Now Thorson wonders if three races with a top-tier team may have earned him more recognition than what came with being a semi-regular with a less-seasoned operation.
Before some get the wrong impression, Thorson quickly added, “It was a blast, it really was. I would do it again under the right circumstances, because I know I am capable of doing it. I raced against some of those guys in super late models and beat them, but I don‘t want to do it if I‘m not in the best of the best stuff.”
Whatever frustration he felt from his first foray into NASCAR racing was offset by a stellar year racing winged sprint cars and midgets. As the season unfolded, not only was Thorson going to get a chance in Clyde Lamar‘s 360 and 410 sprint car, he also competed in a midget for the legendary owner.
It was a year that saw him bag a dozen wins and really confirmed his feelings that this was a discipline he could thrive in, and that his ultimate goal of competing with the World of Outlaws was realistic.
The pursuit of that dream led to an appearance with the Outlaws at Las Vegas early in the 2019 season. The trip home did not go as planned. Offering an optimistic prognosis, doctors suggested that his recovery time would fall between seven and nine months.
Three months and one day later, Thorson was ready to get back to action.
To continue reading, advance to the next page.