When comparing her life with her younger sister Ellie who is headed for a career in the medical field, Ashton Thompson says with a laugh, “She has her life together and I am still going in circles.”
Yet, there is little doubt that going in circles is exactly what Thompson wants to do.
Her journey through the motorsports landscape is far from linear. There have been setbacks, some sidetracks and there has been the constant struggle with the economics of it all. Frustrations? There have been a few. Still, nothing has dented her overwhelming sense that a career in racing is where she belongs. The detours along the way have only sharpened her vision and steeled her resolve.
She was born and resides in Salem, Ind. Salem, the home of just over six thousand residents serves as the hub of Washington County. It is also the home of a legendary paved oval that rests at the western edge of the city. The bridge that once carried fans and participants across the fourth turn at Salem Speedway now spans Brook Creek and is used by students as they travel to and from the local high school.
It is a racing town, and Thompson grew up in a racing family. Her grandfather Gerald, who once owned Thompson Automotive and her father, Tyson, both raced mini sprints in the Hoosier State.
For Ashton it all began at the age of six at Mini Indy Speedway, which is situated at the Indiana State Fairgrounds in Indianapolis. It is a place where future legends first cut their teeth. Spending time at the track was important during her formative years.
“People noticed me in the quarter midgets for sure and my dad thought I was going to be the next Danica Patrick,” she said. “I remember playing football with the boys and hanging out in the hotels. The racing part of it I really don’t remember quite as much.” She raced with the Quarter Midgets of America and then under the USAC banner. She didn’t turn this world upside down, but she found her way to the podium. Then one day it was over. The recession of 2009 and 2010 hit hard, and suddenly Tyson Thompson was out of work. Racing fell by the wayside for a time.
Ashton turned her attention to softball and basketball in middle school and high school. There was success in both sports, although she describes her role on a Salem Lion’s team that played for the state basketball championship as “a field filler.”
Perhaps, but it still speaks to an innate competitiveness that has never been quelled. However, she soon realized she felt a void in her life that only racing could fill. With her father now a sales manager with Spartan Mowers the door was ajar to get back behind the wheel.
She spent some time in college, which she discovered “was not really her thing,” and that made the desire to try to gain a foothold in racing grow even stronger. Finding the right niche to make that happen was more elusive.
“You don’t realize how much racing grows on you until you are out of it for a while,” she said. “I got back into it first in a Legend car which I hated. I didn’t like anything about them. Then I tried Formula 4 which was cool, but too expensive.”
After doing a search, it was decided that a Kenyon midget was within their budget. In 2022, she raced the Kenyon car with the United States Speed Ass’n on a slate comprised of both dirt and paved ovals. A series of top-10 finishes in her rookie year resulted in a 10th-place finish in the standings.
That same year she jumped at a chance to race a 602 Super Sportsman for Bill Kimmel and became the first woman to earn the pole at her hometown Salem Speedway. From there she led the feature before mechanical woes hit just over two laps shy of the checkered flag. Still, she soldiered on to finish in the runner-up position.
That outcome suggested another possible avenue, and for a moment she considered making a run at the ARCA series. It was worth a look, and then she says, “We realized how much money that was going to take.”
The season was productive on a number of fronts, including understanding where she truly longed to be.
“The Kenyon cars are very different and by the time we really started figuring it out I was kind of to the point where I realized that I would like to go dirt racing full time,” she said.
To kick-start that process she decided that she needed to make it to the Chili Bowl Nationals.
This was not going to be the easiest place to make her first national midget start, but she decided her motto would be “go big or go home.”
She secured a ride with veteran A. J. Felker but understood that more external support was necessary.
“It was going to take about 10 grand to go to the Chili Bowl and while I could round up a few sponsors here and there it wasn’t going to be enough,” she said. “I didn’t know how people did this. It wasn’t like I had an agent, so I started going through the Chili Bowl lap sponsors from the year before and started sending out email messages.”
One of the recipients was Lyle Clark of Trailer Alarms. She had hit pay dirt.
“He responded in about 10 minutes and said he would like to do it,” she said. “It was kind of crazy, but we have continued the partnership. He is a great guy and I try to help him, too. He has a great product and you just have to convince people that they need it. A lot of drivers want to spend money on something other than an alarm system because they never think it will happen to them. Then it does happen to them, and it is too late.”
The Chili Bowl experience led to some midget dates with Jay Mounce and Mounce/Stout Motorsports.
“I ran five or six races with Jay,” Ashton said. “But I ran out of money. It was giving me great exposure, but it wasn’t in the budget.”
It was time to regroup. “This last winter we had to figure out a way to go racing at a more feasible price and not spend thousands of dollars on something that isn’t going to get me where I want to go,” she explained. “You can pay for midget rental rides all day long and come home with nothing.”
A Sprint Car Racer
Building on this logic the family purchased a 305 IMCA RaceSaver sprint car and as she notes, “Now at least I have a race car in the garage that I can work on during the week.”
Ashton and her father began this new chapter together at the beginning of the year. They knew it wasn’t going to be easy.
“I had never driven a sprint car and my dad had never worked on one,” she noted. “In March we did a lot of research on setting up the car and it was clear after the first couple of races that this was a totally different animal. I didn’t know what I liked in a sprint car compared to the midget.”
It was a rocky start. Then came a pivotal moment.
“One race at Bloomington, I just decided to drive the hell out of it,” she said. “I sat quick time, won my heat and led the first 10 laps of the feature until the right front shock fell off. I realized then I had better bolt check everything. Then the next week, we realized we had broken a valve.”
With the engine repaired she came back with renewed confidence that she could win in this discipline.
Perseverance has been vital and the overall outlook remains positive.
“If you were to ask me if we were going to be where we are now back in March, I would say you’re crazy,” she said. “There was no way with my experience level and our level of crew chief experience that we should be running in the top 10 with these guys, but we are. That is huge and we are hungry for more.”
Thompson has also gained some notoriety as a spokesperson for the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition.
“They are a small foundation out of Dallas, Texas,” Thompson said. “So this is a great way to raise awareness. They don’t get the kind of funding that Susan B Komen gets for breast cancer, but they are going to grow. It is a mutual partnership that benefits both of us.”
Not long after she began doing her part to shine a light on the NOCC it became much more personal.
“A lady came up to me when I was running in the Kenyon series and told me she had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer three weeks ago,” Thompson noted. “I got her with NOCC and she got in a trial treatment program. Right there this became much more than just having their name on my car, or their patch on my uniform.”
If things go as planned, she will speak at the group’s annual conference in Chicago in October.
Thompson holds a job in Clarksville, Ind., but knows what she truly wants. She wants to race full time. With people like Lyle Clark at Trailer Alarms, Nancy Chumbley at Hinchman Uniforms and her mother Joann in her corner, she has the support system in place to make a run at her dream.
Would she love to run a 410 wing sprint car? Absolutely, but she also realizes she “isn’t there yet.” Yet is the key word in the last sentence. Given Ashton Thompson’s nature, one can bet she is going to reach her goal.