{"id":230133,"date":"2018-02-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-09T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/del-cerro-boy-already-making-a-name-in-car-racing\/"},"modified":"2018-02-09T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-02-09T08:00:00","slug":"del-cerro-boy-already-making-a-name-in-car-racing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/del-cerro-boy-already-making-a-name-in-car-racing\/","title":{"rendered":"Del Cerro boy already making a name in car racing"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Doug Curlee |\u00a0Editor at Large<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you want to be when you grow up?\u201d<\/p>\n

The teacher wasn\u2019t quite ready for Deegan Irie\u2019s reply.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m gonna be a NASCAR driver!\u201d<\/p>\n

Deegan meant it then, and means it now, and he appears to be on the way to realizing that dream someday.<\/p>\n

\"Del<\/a>
Junior Sprint car racer Deegan Irie with his trophies in front of his home in Del Cerro (Courtesy Stacy Irie)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s been on his mind since he was old enough to say it.<\/p>\n

Deegan is now 9 years old, and he\u2019s already won two yearly championships driving race cars at Barona Speedway, piling up a large number of trophies and citations.<\/p>\n

According to his mother, Stacy, Deegan has always had a keen interest in race cars.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow many kids that age will sit and watch an entire NASCAR race \u2014 four hours\u2019 worth?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Not many, but for Deegan it\u2019s always been a fascination.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll sit and watch any movie with cars in it,\u201d he said. \u201cI never get tired of seeing cars and racing, seeing what I can learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a family effort, and Deegan has gotten so good so fast that he\u2019s attracted a number of sponsors willing to help bankroll what is not a cheap endeavor.<\/p>\n

So how good is he? Good enough that, after two years dominating the mini-dwarf car class at Barona, he\u2019s moving up to the Junior Sprint car class. Why is this significant?<\/p>\n

Because it places Deegan in competition with cars that are bigger, faster and harder to handle than the mini-dwarf cars he\u2019s been winning in.<\/p>\n

More importantly, it\u2019s recognition that he\u2019s probably too good a driver for the mini-dwarfs now and that he\u2019s ready to do something few other kids have done.<\/p>\n

\"Del
Deegan Irie at the Barona Speedway (Courtesy Stacy Irie)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He\u2019ll 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.<\/p>\n

If you think you\u2019ve heard this kind of story before, you have.<\/p>\n

This is more or less how El Cajon\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Deegan doesn\u2019t mind the comparison at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve actually met Jimmie a couple of times, when we went to NASCAR races where he meets with the public. He\u2019s a really nice guy, and a great driver,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Somewhat unlike Johnson, Deegan is a well-rounded kid athletically. When he\u2019s not racing, you can find him on the baseball diamond or the basketball court.<\/p>\n

(Johnson has more than once admitted that, when he was a kid, he wasn\u2019t sure what a baseball bat was for.)<\/p>\n

The new racing season at Barona begins on March 24, and Deegan and the family will be there.<\/p>\n

It\u2019ll 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.<\/p>\n

Right now, no one is betting against him.<\/p>\n

He might just have been born for this.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Doug Curlee es editor general. llegar a \u00e9l en doug@sdcnn.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Por Doug Curlee | Editor en general<\/p>","protected":false},"author":766,"featured_media":230134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11558","_seopress_titles_title":"Del Cerro boy already making a name in car racing","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11558,11551,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-230133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-mission-times-courier","category-news","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/766"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}