Sandy Hopkins was a fan of racer Arie Luyendyk, while her husband Fred favored A.J. Foyt. However, when it came time to name a new baby boy, dad prevailed. With that as a backdrop, it comes as little surprise that A.J. Hopkins has been tooling around on some sort of race craft most of his life.
He had what he deems a yard kart before he had reached the age of three, and he used it to tear around the five acres of property at his Brownsburg, Ind., home.
Next, his father purchased a Dale Ridgeway-constructed quarter-midget and he was soon involved in novice training with the Terre Haute Quarter Midget club. When he turned five he started racing in the Jr. Novice ranks, but when he dominated the class he was asked to move up.
Jr. Honda was a humbling experience for about a year, but once he got the hang of it success followed. He continued to race at Terre Haute but also participated at Mini Indy at the Indiana State Fairgrounds and at the Kokomo Quarter Midget Club.
Next on the card were micros, and by 2008 Hopkins was winning regularly at US 24 Speedway in Logansport, Ind., and he would venture to the Tulsa Shootout and post fine finishes in the stock wing and non-wing categories.
The great thing about his early days in the sport was the quality of the competition he faced. Off the cuff, Hopkins noted that current racers like Tyler and Taylor Courtney, Kyle Hamilton, Scott Hampton, Tim Creech, Wes McIntyre, Garret Abrams and racer/television personality Dillon Welch were among his peers.
It is at this point that so many young careers come to an end. At times it is a question of fiscal resources, but often it is a matter of having the kind of help that can get you to the race track and possesses the technical aptitude needed to give you a fighting chance once there.
Luckily for A.J., his dad had earned a mechanical engineering degree from Purdue, and that alone made the jump to sprint cars a bit more feasible.
By 2010, A.J. was in the field at Lincoln Park Speedway, and within a few years he had carried the family car to victory lane. There are lots of pluses to racing your own equipment. You call the shots, you decide when and where you race, and there is no need to split the check at the end of the night with anyone.
The other side of this equation is equally obvious. The bills all fall in your lap and when you turn one over the cost can be steep. Few admit it out loud, but sometimes there is a natural urge to be more conservative when the car you are sitting in on the track spends the off nights in your own garage.
Hopkins got steadily better at this game and a few months into the 2017 season he was plying his trade for owner Jeremy Ottinger. It was a great opportunity. This combination clicked early and wins came at Lincoln Park and Kokomo Speedways. If there was a damper on the breakout campaign it came in September. He was locked in a heated battle with Shane Cockrum at Lincoln Park and he surmised he had a real shot at victory.
Picking up the story, he says, “I went to slide Cockrum in turn three with four laps to go. I slid him but the car biked up and when it came down the frame bottomed out and it compressed and shattered my T6 vertebrae. I got back on the track and Jadon Rogers passed us, but I got back around him for second and rode it out to the finish. On my cool down lap I thought something isn‘t right. I couldn‘t breathe or catch my breath.
When I got back to the pits they called EMS, put me on a stretcher, and got me to the hospital.”
Luckily the damage was manageable and there was no need for surgery, but he was relegated to a back brace 24/7 for 14 long weeks.
Hopkins had a good job and a family and those are things you have to protect. His wife Morgan, as one could expect, raised an eyebrow, but when the gray Indiana weather turned to spring the urge to race was just too strong. When you come back from injury in any circumstance people watch, and when you have a family on top of that people look twice. When A.J. posted back-to-back wins in May, any doubts about his willingness to give it his all were put to bed. On top of his sprint car activities, as usual, he found time to hop in a 600 micro and compete in Indiana and Illinois.
The Indiana bullring scene is no cakewalk. When time allows, many of the top guns of USAC stop by and each track has a handful of drivers who know every inch of the facility. Given his central location, it was particularly easy for Hopkins to sign in at Lincoln Park, Bloomington and the revitalized Paragon Speedway.
Hopkins began to be a favorite each night, and if he had not missed a few dates when he strayed to race a micro, he could have been the 2018 Lincoln Park champion.
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