“The first years were brutal,” recalled Mike Anderson, who has crewed for Sanders since he started racing. “He didn’t have the money and when top guys were running 60 races a year, he was doing a dozen and he wore out a lot of car parts.”
That is what makes Sanders’ 2021 breakout year so remarkable. His schedule included 69 races, nearly twice as many as any other year in his career. His 33 podium finishes nearly matched the number of races he ran (36) the year before.
Sanders only got busier in 2022, running more than 70 races with the King of the West and Sprint Car Challenge Series in northern California, as well as travels to the Midwest. If the ’21 season was the year Sanders broke out of obscurity, ’22 was the season he broke out of his comfort zone.
“I want to win in more places and win in 410s,” said Sanders, both for the challenge of conquering new tracks and to shed being labelled as just “a good 360 racer.” That included trips to Iowa, where he was a first-night qualifier for the Knoxville Nationals, to Indiana and to Arkansas, for the Short Track Nationals, where he finished third. Building on the success of that breakout year, his phone rings regularly with requests from car owners.
For most of the year, Sanders divides his time between a car he owns and two others that he drives for owners Dale Miller and Demo Mittry. More cars in the garage means that Sanders’ Sundays are as busy as they have ever been.
“It doesn’t matter how late I get home,” said Sanders, who owns a sign-making company. “It’s the day we clean out the trailer and clean up the car. I have a schedule to keep and I have to juggle a lot because I have a full-time job.”
In addition to his own car, Sanders keeps the familiar No. 2x car that he drives for Mittry in his shop, as well as a third car driven by Sanders’ younger brother, who began following in his older brother’s footsteps by racing at Ocean Speedway two years ago.
Sanders describes himself as a “hands-on driver because it works better for me.” That gives him the opportunity to explore different set-ups, looking for a competitive edge. “I can try new things and get to know how they feel,” he said.
Juggling the work on three cars also keeps him busy, making them an integral part of his everyday life.
“Those cars are not far from where he sleeps,” said one crew member who has helped Sanders for about 20 years, underscoring his dedication to winning.
Racing on a lean budget with almost no spares in his early days forced Sanders to learn every detail on the car to get the most out of the pieces he had. That included learning the intrinsic mystery of shocks, one of the most critical parts on a car set-up.
That expertise led him to his relationship with Mittry, where Sanders is part of a two-car team with Mittry’s son, Max.
While driving for Miller, a ride he’s had since 2017, he helped Mittry with a shock set-up at the Dirt Cup a few years ago. That gesture of friendly sportsmanship was the first step in what has become a much deeper relationship.
Sanders was committed to driving for Miller at Placerville and in other select races, while also running his own car at Ocean Speedway and in the Sprint Car Challenge Tour. That left little room in his schedule to drive yet another car, but Mittry says he knew their relationship was going to grow.
“It started out gradually at Skagit and I knew he would drive one of our cars, but we had to figure out when to do it,” Mittry said.
Their opportunity came during a mid-winter trip to Arizona, when the Miller car and all of racing in northern California was enjoying an offseason snooze.
“Everything clicked,” Mittry recalled. “He is so driven and leaves no stone unturned while he strives to be the best and I’m the same way. We worked well together and had a lot of fun and he’s so positive.”
As a result, Sanders not only juggles a shop schedule with a full-time job, he also juggles driving Mittry’s cars in the Sprint Car Challenge Tour and the King of the West series with his driving commitments to Miller.
His relationship with Mittry is easy-going, almost more like father and son than driver and owner. Their mutual intensity to win is masked by a genuine friendship and mutual respect. It also reveals yet another somewhat overlooked side of Sanders. His willingness to share what he knows matches his own intensity to win. It’s common for drivers to sidle up to him at the track to ask advice, or for teams to text questions about set-ups if they are racing at other tracks.