Teddy Hodgdon is Back at Twin State Speedway and Wants Another Sprint Car Championship
- May 19, 2011
"I was a little kid and I thought that his car was really cool," the 10-year-old Hodgdon said. "It had the K&N sponsor on it. I thought, hey, I like that car. I want to be sponsored by K&N too. I'm proud of K&N for doing this. I'd like to thank them very much too." With the K&N colors, Hodgdon won the 2010 Hoosier Tire Challenge Series championship at Twin State Speedway in New Hampshire. He is back at Twin State Speedway racing a Tiger Sprint car and wants to win another championship at the track. He plans on racing at Stafford Motor Speedway in Connecticut as well. "My goal was for the points championship at Twin State and the points championship at Stafford too," said Hodgdon, a fourth-grader from Danbury, Conn. "I have a good chance of getting that." He's off to a good start. He won the season opener at Twin State and finished third in his second race. He crashed in the second lap, but recovered for a podium finish. "I feel pretty good about these races even though I had the crash," Hodgdon said. "I feel pretty confident from coming back from that crash." Ted Hodgdon, Teddy's dad, has seen his son mature as a driver since winning the Hoosier Tire Challenge Series championship a year ago. "He's really advanced from last year to this year," Ted Hodgdon said. "He's a lot more in tune with the racing this year and that happened over the winter. He wanted to start helping work on the car in the garage. During disassembling and rebuild, he was involved in most of that process and more hands on. I really think he was thinking about it all winter long, whereas before, the last couple of year, I would just work on the car and he would hop in and drive. When he got out of the car, he was off playing." Ted Hodgdon said his son has become a more aggressive driver. Working on the race car has given Teddy a better grasp of how the car works and what it needs to improve the performance of the car. "The age for that division of karting he's in is 7 to 11 years old," Ted Hodgdon said. "Being 10 years old, he's now in the upper half of that age group. He's a little older now. I can see that already in that first race, being a year older, he was more aggressive with the car. Not taking unnecessary chances, but when there was an opportunity, he would stick his nose in there. He would take advantage of the situation. When he was younger, sometimes he would hesitate some. This year, when he sees an opening, he's going for it." As for winning two track championships, Ted Hodgdon said his son will have the opportunity to accomplish that goal. He is off to a good start at Twin State. Rain washed out the first race at Stafford. But winning races and championships is not the focus of his son's racing. "We're going to run the two tracks weekly," Ted Hodgdon said. "He's in good position at both of the tracks. He's one of the frontrunners and he has a good opportunity if things go right. Our main goal is to have fun and be there as a family. My wife and my daughter are always there. My wife's very involved. That's the number one thing. If we can win some and happen to win a championship, that would be icing on the cake." Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world. |
