Emporian Troy Ross grew up around the speed, noise, burns and bursts of drag racing, and in the eyes of his father, Dick, Troy’s already a better racer at age 21 than Dick ever was.
With eight career wins following his latest victory at Heartland Park Topeka, and the help of two titans of Emporia racing, Troy hopes to keep pushing his career to new heights. After he gets school out of the way, he’d like to make a run at competing on a national level. For now, he’s matter-of-fact about his local track successes.
“Once you get that taste of victory,” he said, “it’s addicting. The speed is, too.”
Ross’ eight victories have come in 13 finals since his career began in 2003. Most recently, he ran his 1969 Chevy Nova to a win in the No Electronics class in the Mega Bucks Drag Race last Sunday at HPT, winning $1,500. He’s finished as the runner-up in the E.T. Pro points series at HPT twice in the past three years and finished as the Division 5 E.T. Pro runner-up last year in a field of 196 racers.
Having been around different forms of racing his entire life, Troy’s success has come naturally. Dick Ross, who began drag racing in 1963, took Troy to the drag strips when he was a youngster. As he grew up, Troy did some dirt-track racing, then got involved in drag racing with the help of his father. The first victory of Troy’s drag career came at a High School Drags competition in Kansas City in 2003, when he was 16.
“He got adapted pretty easily, and raced the old Camaro he still drives, his school car,” Dick Ross said. “Did a good job, was smooth, and was pretty serious about it right from the start.”
By now, Dick said, Troy has surpassed his ability behind the wheel.
“He became a better driver than I ever was probably in his third or fourth year,” Dick Ross said. “Yet again, the competition is greater, so you have to be. It’s very mental.”
Troy has three semesters left before he obtains his business administration degree from Emporia State University. After that, if things go his way, he’ll have a full-time job and eventually begin competing around the country on weekends. He’d like to move from the E.T. bracket racing he’s doing now to the Stock or Super Stock categories in the NHRA.
“I mean, it’s pretty farfetched to try to make a living out of it,” he said. “But I’d kind of like to be able to do it at a national level, kind of comparable to Gary Stinnett — he works, and then he goes on the weekends and he races national and divisional races. That’s really what I want to get to... and hopefully we’ll be able to do that once I’m done with school.”
So it’ll be awhile before Troy has the chance to join Stinnett and rising NASCAR star Clint Bowyer as Emporians on the national stage — but as he works toward that, he’s getting a little help from both. The Rosses were friends with both the Stinnett and Bowyer families while Troy was growing up, and both racers have provided assistance with the ’69 Nova.
“(Bowyer) was actually at my alumni basketball game at the high school during the winter last year, and him and his two brothers showed up at the gym, and I didn’t really expect it,” Troy said. “But I looked up there... and I went and talked to ’em at halftime. They were talking to my dad, and (Bowyer) just said he’s gonna send us some horsepower, so that’s what we got.”
Stinnett said he has provided guidance to Ross, and Stinnett Automotive & Racing sells the Rosses parts that they need and recently rebuilt their transmission. Stinnett is cautious about Troy’s chances of making it big on the national racing circuit, saying there are a million Troy Rosses who want to do so.
“Troy has some dreams, but there’s a lot of them that have it,” Stinnett said. “Does he have the skills? Sure he has the skills, but there’s a lot of them (who) do. He dreams awful big, but only time will tell. He’s pretty young.”
Ross will compete in a bracket race in Topeka again this weekend, then in Manhattan the weekend after that. The following weekend, he plans to compete in Topeka in his first divisional race of the year.
He said he tries to get younger people involved in the sport, because many people don’t know as much about drag racing as they do about NASCAR.
“It’s kind of like any other sport,” he said. “I played basketball throughout high school... and it’s the same with racing. It’s very competitive, and you’ve gotta be focused and be on your game to win races.”
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