The Future’s So Bright
Jetta TDI Cup’s Second Season
There are worse places to chase your dreams, you know. Here, among the rolling green hills and the attendant vineyards of California’s Sonoma Valley, the chasing of dreams takes on a more literal meaning. It’s here, at Infineon Raceway, one of North America’s great road tracks, where more than 40 of North America’s finest young drivers chase each other in a series of tests and challenges over the course of four days. For the more than 40 drivers here chasing their dreams, they’re all hungry for the kind of shot at racing royalty that the Jetta TDI™ Cup gives them. It’s a shot most have never had before.
Considering the Jetta TDI™ Cup is the only green race in North America, it’s a unique opportunity to make history. And do it in a Jetta TDI that offers the best of both worlds—fuel efficiency and spirited, fun-to-drive performance—no compromises.
For those drivers who made the final cut, this is just the beginning. This is but the commencement of a long, exhausting, exhilarating, trying, rewarding and altogether demanding season that will span more than seven months in length. It’s a season that will cover 10 races (two more than last season), eight courses, eight states and two countries.
Names to know
One of our favorite parts of the entire Jetta TDI Cup season, and the driver-selection event in particular, is meeting the season’s new crop of young, talented drivers. Here is a look at three that caught our eye at Infineon.
Kerstin Smutny
From: Bothell, Washington
Age: 19
Years racing: 12
Online: kerstinsmutnyracing.com
As quiet and unassuming off the track as she is confident and successful on it, Smutny makes history this year as one of the Jetta TDI Cup’s first female drivers. It’s the kind of history she’s been making for some time now.
She’s different from the majority of her fellow Jetta TDI Cup™ drivers in another notable regard, too: She’s the first in her family to pursue racing as even just a hobby. “No one in my family had done anything like this before,” she explains. “I guess the expectation was for me to play ‘girly sports,’ but I knew from an early age this is what I wanted to do.” Even though racing was foreign to her family, they supported her pursuit of it as a career.
The Jetta TDI Cup is an ideal opportunity for Smutny not just for the career opportunities, either; Smutny’s a VW girl all the way through; her daily driver is a 2008 Rabbit—“by far the nicest car I’ve ever driven.” (Off the track, we assume.)
And, while she’s off the track, she’s your everyday girl-next-door type. Home-schooled, she enjoys spending time with her friends and family. She stays active in her spare time, running, lifting weights and biking extensively. If racing doesn’t turn out to be a career, she likes being in front of the camera; she wants to be a broadcast journalist or race reporter for television.
At a glance
Racing dream: Winning the Indianapolis 500
If she’s not racing: Wants to be a broadcast journalist/race reporter
Racing role models: Alex Zanardi, Mario Andretti
TV show: “Grey’s Anatomy”
Movie: “Cars,” “Talladega Nights”
Music: “Everything—especially country”
Hobbies/interests: Jet-skiing, hanging out with friends
A.J. Nealey
From: Edgewater, Maryland
Age: 25
Years racing: 7
Online: ajnealeyracing.com
The self-proclaimed “old fart of the group,” Nealey knows the Jetta TDI Cup is likely his best last shot at serious racing success. He may be a little long in the tooth in racing years, but in terms of experience he’s a young buck. He started racing in earnest only about seven years ago, but has quickly made up for his late start. He’s a cerebral, strategic driver, relishing the chess-game aspect of the sport. And he loves that the Jetta TDI Cup ensures its driver talent, not budget, that wins out.
It’s difficult to get Nealey to talk about the things he enjoys away from racing and cars; well, there isn’t much of it. After studying mechanical engineering from the University of Delaware, Nealey now works as a full-time auto mechanic in Maryland.
Because 2009 is, as Nealey puts it, “just about the worst year ever to ask for money,” he’s been getting inventive in raising the money needed to race in the Jetta TDI Cup this year. “Pretty much sold everything I own,” he says. He’s going after sponsors, too, and seeking out help from friends and family as he chases his dream of life as a full-time, gainfully employed racecar driver.
When he’s not racing, he enjoys riding—his motorcycle. Although, he sold that, too. His proximity to the Chesapeake Bay makes it easy for him to enjoy another of his passions, albeit one he indulges in rarely because of work and racing: sailing on his father’s racing catamaran. (Always with the racing.) Truly, though, he says, his time behind the wheel is when he’s the happiest. “My passion is my hobby,” he explains.
At a glance
Racing dream: “Anything with a paycheck—including monster trucks”
Movie: “The Big Lebowski,” “The World’s Fastest Indian”
TV show: “Lost” and “24”
Hobbies/interests: Working on cars
Music: Rock music, mainly—Red Hot Chili Peppers, Muse
Ryan Ellis
From: Ashburn, Virginia
Age: 19
Years racing: 15
Online: ryanellisracing.com
For a guy as busy and as varied in activities as Ryan Ellis, you’d expect him to be tired. But he’s not. He’s high-energy and full of optimism, excitement and eagerness. And it’s infectious. For every 10 people who say it’s just an honor to be nominated for an award, Ellis is the one who means it. When he says, as he did at the driver-selection event, that he just hopes he makes the cut, you can tell he means it. And, when he tells you how excited he is after he makes the cut, you can tell he’s sincere.
And racing is just the beginning with Ellis. His love of hockey nearly equals that of racing. A business marketing student at George Mason University, he plays for the school’s ice and inline hockey teams. “A high-scoring, rough-riding defenseman,” as he puts it. He spends a lot of time in either games or practice. When he’s not playing, he’s watching. “Huge Washington Capitals fan,” he explains.
Racing, however, remains his first love. Can’t blame him—it’s genetic. He’s a third-generation driver; his father and both of his grandfathers enjoyed relative success in their heydays.
With racing in his blood, it’s understandable to hear Ellis say it’s the thing he loves to do most.
At a glance
Racing dream: Taking home the Jetta TDI Cup series title
Hobbies/interests: Hockey, member of school’s Kappa Sigma fraternity