By Doug Curlee | Editor at Large

A couple of years ago, a teacher at Marvin Elementary school in Allied Gardens asked the question teachers always seem to ask of young children.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

The teacher wasn’t quite ready for Deegan Irie’s reply.

“I’m gonna be a NASCAR driver!”

Deegan meant it then, and means it now, and he appears to be on the way to realizing that dream someday.

It’s been on his mind since he was old enough to say it.

Deegan is now 9 years old, and he’s already won two yearly championships driving race cars at Barona Speedway, piling up a large number of trophies and citations.

According to his mother, Stacy, Deegan has always had a keen interest in race cars.

“How many kids that age will sit and watch an entire NASCAR race — four hours’ worth?” she said.

Not many, but for Deegan it’s always been a fascination.

“I’ll sit and watch any movie with cars in it,” he said. “I never get tired of seeing cars and racing, seeing what I can learn.”

It’s a family effort, and Deegan has gotten so good so fast that he’s attracted a number of sponsors willing to help bankroll what is not a cheap endeavor.

So how good is he? Good enough that, after two years dominating the mini-dwarf car class at Barona, he’s moving up to the Junior Sprint car class. Why is this significant?

Because it places Deegan in competition with cars that are bigger, faster and harder to handle than the mini-dwarf cars he’s been winning in.

More importantly, it’s recognition that he’s probably too good a driver for the mini-dwarfs now and that he’s ready to do something few other kids have done.

He’ll be racing against kids who are older than he is, and bigger. Most Junior Sprint drivers are 11 to 15 years old. Deegan gets to advance because of his two-year domination of the smaller class. Not many drivers get to do that.

If you think you’ve heard this kind of story before, you have.

This is more or less how El Cajon’s Jimmie Johnson started. He, too, was a child racing prodigy who worked his way up against superior competition to eventually become what many consider to be the greatest NASCAR driver ever.

Deegan doesn’t mind the comparison at all.

“I’ve actually met Jimmie a couple of times, when we went to NASCAR races where he meets with the public. He’s a really nice guy, and a great driver,” he said.

Somewhat unlike Johnson, Deegan is a well-rounded kid athletically. When he’s not racing, you can find him on the baseball diamond or the basketball court.

(Johnson has more than once admitted that, when he was a kid, he wasn’t sure what a baseball bat was for.)

The new racing season at Barona begins on March 24, and Deegan and the family will be there.

It’ll be interesting to see how he handles the new, bigger, faster car, and how he handles the pressures the step-up in competition will bring.

Right now, no one is betting against him.

He might just have been born for this.

— Doug Curlee is Editor at Large. Reach him at [email protected].