Story about Kaleb Kreis in the "Lake Travis View"

[NickHolt]

Kreis steps out of the norm, on to the gas

 

by Max Thompson

 

It’s a hot, sweltering spring afternoon in the Hill Country in Texas, one that’s just hot enough to make a shirt feel like punishment.

 

Hunched over in the shade of a racing trailer, 17-year old Kaleb Kreis is shirtless and taking shelter in the waning hours of sunlight.

 

Lake Travis View photo

 

Kreis is a budding race car driver hidden in a football oasis, and on this night, he’s going over modifications to his SportMod racecar, while three NasKarts are set off to the side on stands.

 

Look at Kreis’ house from the front, and you’d never know there’s a racing workshop hidden behind it, and his father Marty laughs at the notion of calling it a shop.

 

“It’s just a slab, a trailer and the cars,” he says.

 

This is tangibly true, as the drive that winds around the house first reveals a backdrop of canyon trees before a few more feet around reveal the trailer and the bright colors of each vehicle.

 

But if you’re hoping to find the heart of racing in America, you’d be hard pressed to find it anywhere else. To the cynic (and the humble man running the show), it’s just a slab and some cars. To anyone that’s ever wished for something greater and believed in their ability and love for something, it’s a slab, some cars and a dream.

 

That last word changes everything, and no matter how modestly the men around that trailer talk about the endeavor, they know how much a dream can mean.

 

Kaleb Kreis started racing around the age of five. There was no master plan. No obsession-fueled hobby. Kreis was not playing with steering wheels from the minute he developed dexterity as an infant. At least, that’s not how he remembers it.

 

“We just picked it up as a family thing. We were always watching NASCAR, and would always go to Thunderhill and think, ‘It would really be cool to be racing out here one day,’” he says. “Years later, here we are, messing around.”

 

Messing around is a funny way to put it. Kreis is good. This is certainly a good time, but it’s also much more than that. He was the NasKart Pro Racing Series Rookie of the Year last season, and he’s in third place in the points this season. In his SportMod racing debut on Saturday, he finished sixth. In context, he’s a very small star in the racing universe, but he’s also a star that’s grown brighter in a hurry.

 

For the uninitiated, NasKarts are a far cry from the go-karts they appear to be. Imagine if you lowered the go-kart you drove at that amusement park that one time and then put an engine in it that made it capable of pushing 90 mph. Now imagine strapping on a helmet and praying to God that the thing doesn’t flip while you whip around the field en route to a first place finish. If that experience isn’t intense enough, hop in a SportMod – the root of all racers – and get a little more feisty with a full car frame and a ’78 Monte Carlo engine under the bonnet. In case you’re curious, it’s as loud as it sounds.

 

“Oh that’s nothing,” Kreis says. “We actually had to quiet this thing down because of the noise complaints the track at Kyle gets from the people nearby.”

 

Hard to imagine, seeing as the sound of the engine was the visceral equivalent to Heidi Klum whispering in your ear.

 

These are the chariots that Kreis intends to guide to victory lane every weekend he gets behind the wheel. It all sounds very glamorous, but the reality is that 30 hours of hard labor go into that car every week before he gets behind the wheel for a few dozen laps.

 

“It’s probably 2-3 hours a day, and then it’s an all-day thing on Saturday,” Bill Follis says as he leans against a while with a cold beverage and a grin that reveals the work isn’t always the work it appears to be.

 

Follis is Rockhard Racing’s “motor man.” Rockhard Racing is Kreis’ team.

 

“Million dollar Bill is what we call him,” Kreis says. “He always comes through. It’s just amazing the things he does to our motors. We give them to him broken, and he brings them back ready to go.”

 

Every good racing team has one heck of a motor man. Follis loves it, much more than he loves his nickname.

 

“I’m not a huge fan,” he muses. “And anyway I haven’t seen a cent of that million.”

 

Therein lies a great truth about this path that Rockhard Racing is taking. This is a labor of love, and they make no bones about it. They scrape by on pennies after repairs and upgrades. They’re in constant search of donors and donations. A lot of hands carry Kreis’ cars to the finish line each weekend he’s in the saddle, from the pit crew (mostly his high school buddies) to donated parts to free body work from Hummel’s Repair Shop. The car doesn’t touch the track without a lot of people so committed to the cause that their reimbursement is time with the guys in the garage and that shared moment when the car is the first across the finish line.

 

Kreis doesn’t take that for granted.

 

“I’ve got all my friends, crew, dad’s friends. It means everything to me. Without them, we wouldn’t have that car running,” he said.

 

It’s all worth it when he gets out on the track.

 

“It’s amazing. It doesn’t compare. It’s a great release,” he says. “When you’re out on the track, all you think about is passing a guy, and once you do, you get this adrenaline rush, and all you can think about is doing it again. Sometimes it even gets you in trouble if you can’t harness it and focus.”

 

Kreis doesn’t seem like a driver lacking in focus. Though, Follis begs to differ when it comes to girls sending his driver text messages. But that’s another story.

 

Follis compares Kreis’ driving style to that of Dale Earnhardt, Jr. – he’s cautious but opportunistic, prone to quick passes out of nowhere. This comparison both delights Kreis and also makes him uncomfortable. Earnhardt is his favorite driver, but he knows he’s got a long way to go.

 

Oddly enough – or maybe it’s appropriately enough – Kreis wrecked before he ever won a race. It was a NasKart race (he’s only moved up to SportMod this season), and he remembers it pretty well.

 

“It was out at Thunderhill,” he said, referring to the Kyle raceway he spends the most time at. “I got flipped up high into the gravel and got spun around backward. If you smash on the brake while you’re spinning, you’ll flip, so I eased on the brake and slid into the wall. I’ve still got a mark about eight inches long on that helmet from where I smacked my head against the wall.”

 

Did the experience enlighten him? Encourage him? Remind him that every time he puts on a helmet he’s walking a fine line with his body and life?

 

“You know it’s dangerous, but you know that going in,” he said. “My crew chief has flipped over twice and been sent to the hospital.”

 

Oh sure, no big deal. Who doesn’t do that all the time?

 

Kreis laughs.

 

“I stay away from the wrecks for the most part. I let them wreck and then catch up later,” he says.

 

Joking or not, it’s about as dangerous as any sport one can dream up for a teenager. But Kreis makes no bones about it. It’s worth it. Get him into a story, and his bright green eyes light up. The big, chiseled jaw loosens and he tips his hat back to reveal the thick matte of black hair. This is when you know you’ve got him in a good place, when he can’t come up with a comparison for the exileration he feels on the track.

 

“It’s just…fast. The g-forces on your body are like nothing else,” he says. “In those NasKarts, you’re going over 80 miles an hour, and you’re an inch off the ground. There’s nothing like that. We’ve had people used to racing big cars take a ride in those and they’ll say it’s like nothing else.”

 

As if it couldn’t get any better, that’s how it feels before he wins a race. He won his first career race and then his second in back-to-back fashion during last year’s rookie of the year campaign, doing it in front 7,500 people at Houston Motorsports Park.

 

The goal of father and son and their team this year is to be champion in the NasKart division, while just getting used to the SportMod races.

 

Between the hectic schedule that starts each day with school, has included football practices in the past and the hours poured into the cars at night, Kreis still manages to lead a pretty normal teenage lifestyle. One may even think he has trouble keeping his foot off the gas when he’s driving around in his truck, especially after years of breakneck speeds on the tracks. But he quickly dismisses the notion.

 

“I’d get in trouble if I had anything more with a motor. I get in trouble enough as it is with my truck,” he laughs. “So if I had a Camaro or something like that, it wouldn’t be good. So being able to race is the release I get.”

 

A release that he hopes will lead to a dream come true someday, having led him, his family and his crew far away from the slab and the back driveway.

 

“It’d be the best thing that could ever happen, to get a ride through someone or do it on our own,” he says. “Either way, it’d be living the dream. I’d be getting paid to do what I love – I’ll take that any day of the week.”

 

Who wouldn’t? But Kreis has no delusions. He knows it will be tough. He knows he’s not the only guy with this dream.

 

No one is saying Kreis is the next big thing – there’s too much road ahead to make that declaration. But he’s done well enough so far that it’s definitely too early to say he won’t be. The dream is living on, but there are still steps to take.

 

It was revealed to Kreis during his last trip to Texas Motor Speedway that he may be able to race at the track if he made progress in the SportMod races. The news made it tough for him to enjoy the NASCAR races he had gone to see.

 

“I had to leave because I was already thinking about the ins and outs, the corners and all of that,” he laughs.

 

So much for living the dream vicariously through Earnhardt for a weekend.

 

Still, the revelation shows what the sport means to Kreis. On weekends, he’s surrounded on all sides by racers from different backgrounds with different reasons to be on the track. Some are goofing off, and while Kreis is not, it doesn’t change the fact that everyone is gunning for the first place finish. A race is a race. And Kreis will take a race any day of the week if he can, against whoever shows up. Intimidation is something he doesn’t have time for.

 

“I don’t get nervous. We’re all the same, really. It’s just another guy. Some of the big names, when we talk to them – that’s cool. It reminds you that we’re all the same kind of guys going after the same thing,” he says. “When we were working with Tony Stewart’s dad, we kept calling him Mr. Stewart. And he kept correcting us, telling us to call him Nelson.”

 

But while he’s excited about the next progression in his racing career, whatever it may be at the given time, he’s also aware that the time is valuable, and he’s not interested in wasting it on his or anyone else’s behalf. Members of his team think he’ll be ready to race at Texas Motor Speedway this summer in front of the big names. He’s not so sure just yet.

 

“My crew chief was saying that if I could get a third or higher by the time the race came along, I should go up there. But I just don’t want to get up there and make a fool of myself,” he says.

 

It doesn’t sound like the deadpan confidence you so often hear coming out of a driver interview at Daytona.

 

“Yeah, but I’ve only been in the SportMod car for 90 laps,” Kreis says. “If they think I can do it, then I’ll go up. I just need more practice time. I mean, I haven’t been in the car that long and I’m already right at the lap pace. So to have the lap time perfect already, that’s pretty good. I knew what I could do, I thought I’d do well.”

 

In other words, it’s not about confidence so much as it’s about experience. Kreis knows his place, and doesn’t want to be branded as the guy overstepping his bounds. Which says a lot about his respect for the sport and how far he’s come.

 

How far will he go? Only time will tell. But it all started in a trailer next to a slab on a driveway. Sounds like how a lot of racing fairytales start.