Mason overcomes injury to race

There isn't a better feeling for Mason Moore than having a checkered flag wave above his sprint car as it crosses the finish line.

And that is saying something.

Moore was a member of the Princeton High Northern Section basketball and baseball championship teams as a senior in 2009.

"The basketball and baseball (championships) were great for sure, because I got to enjoy something with my school friends," said Moore, 19, who attends Chico State with a major in mechanical engineering.

But his life on the dirt tracks of Northern California gives him the biggest thrill.

Taking the checkered flag is an exuberance he has felt three times in his young racing career — most recently at the richest race at Placerville two weeks ago — and a feeling he hopes to carry into a life either in NASCAR or in the World of Outlaws.

"I want to make a living racing," said Moore, who drives the 360 sprint machine for Friends and Family Racing out of Roseville. "I would like to race and support myself, and maybe a family later, but I want to race."

It is a passion that grew out of watching races at the Silver Dollar Speedway in Chico, though it may have been in his blood to start.

His uncle, David Flemming, also raced sprint cars, though Moore said he never saw him on the track, and knew very little about that before he started racing himself.

That began when he learned about Outlaw Kart racing in Red Bluff.

He and his father went up to see the action, and Moore was hooked.

"I said, 'I want one of those,' so my dad bought me one, and we went racing," Moore said.

From there, the passion grew to an obsession, and now Moore races somewhere each Friday and Saturday night — mostly in Chico, but also in his new favorite bull ring, Placerville.

He spent last weekend in Petaluma where he finished 11th after turning in the fastest qualifying time.

It was in Placerville a week earlier, however, when he raced to victory in the Mark Forni Classic, taking home the $5,000 first prize. It was his third sprint car victory, and more importantly, his first since an accident that nearly ended his career before it really got revved up.

That accident happened in Chico on May 23, 2009, while Moore was dialing in his car during hot laps before a race the team never intended for him to enter.

The team was actually gearing up for a Sunday Civil War sprint car race, and at the last minute, decided to race the regular Saturday night program at Silver Dollar.

Moore said everything was going great until the third turn, when he rolled his car.

"I knew I was flipping," said Moore, describing the surreal feeling of being upside down in the sprint car, the roll cage and his helmet the only things between him and the track surface.

"Then the next thing I know, I landed and I felt a sharp pain in my back and it started to burn," Moore said.

Rescue personnel and his team members were quickly on scene. He was removed from the car, and taken to a nearby hospital where he learned he had cracked the fourth vertebrae in his back.

A week later, he limped across the graduation stage at Princeton High.

Moore admits, while sitting in the car that night, thinking he was done with racing. But it wasn't long after that, he began getting the urge to be back in the cockpit.

A long summer later, Moore, in fact, climbed back in his car, out of shape and 20 pounds lighter because of a bout with illness, and turned competitive laps, again.

It's that desire, said crew chief Alan Bradway, that gives Moore a chance of doing well in the sport.

"Yeah, he's got talent, and we work on things he needs to learn every week," said Bradway. "But you have to be instinctual in this game. If you have to think about it, it's too late."

Moore, who is a slight 5-foot-8, 150-pound driver, said his experience coming off the accident convinced him he had to do more to be physically fit.

So he hit the weight room and got his endurance up, and went back racing.

The reward was the Mark Forni win.

"To see him comeback ... and see him win at Placerville, it was pretty cool," said Bradway, himself a past sprint champion at Placerville.

Now Moore sets his sights on bigger things, and that means hitting the road.

"California is a great place to race, but it is not going to get you anywhere," said Moore. "You need to get out east to get your name out there."

Moore has raced out of California before, and has even tested on the pavement a couple of times. He sees his future behind a steering wheel.

"I just want to race."