I'm just a simple boy from a simple town, raised by a simple family, but I had dreams most couldn't understand. Some people accept life for what it is, and some people make it what they want. I'm one of those people. “HR”
My Story
A Simple Beginning
When I was eight years old, my world changed in ways I couldn't understand.
I didn't know it then, but that little boy would spend the next fifty years chasing something far bigger than a checkered flag. I was searching for a place to belong, a reason to believe in myself, and proof that dreams don't have an expiration date.
Before any of that happened, my family lived near my grandparents in Plant City, Florida. When I was six years old, my grandmother passed away. I only have a handful of dreamlike memories of her, but I've been told I spent almost every day at her house and loved her dearly. Even though I was young, I can only imagine how deeply that loss affected me.
Then, two years later, my parents divorced.
My brothers were only six and four years old, but at eight I was old enough to remember what happened. I remember watching my mother leave. My brothers and I stayed with our dad, and we moved from Plant City to Trenton, Florida, where my Uncle Hoyt and his family lived. My dad was suddenly raising three boys on his own.
Over the next several years, we only saw my mother a few times.
There is one memory that has never left me.
Every Christmas and every birthday, my brothers would receive cards from our mom.
I wouldn't.
I can still remember walking to the mailbox hoping maybe this year there would be one with my name on it.
There never was.
As an eight-year-old boy, I believed my mom blamed me for the divorce because I had told my dad what was happening. Whether she did or didn’t, that's what it felt like to me.
Those years changed me.
From the day I was eight years old until the day my father passed away when I was forty-nine, he never saw me cry again.
Not because life stopped hurting.
Because somewhere along the way, I decided I wasn't going to let anyone see it.
A few years later, my dad accepted a job assignment in Saudi Arabia that would keep him away for a year. My brothers and I moved back to Plant City to live with my grandfather and his wife.
It was another major change, only a short time after losing my mom.
My grandfather became the greatest role model I've ever known.
He was honest.
He was loyal.
He never smoked.
He never drank.
He loved the Lord with all his heart.
Without ever realizing it, he was shaping the man I would become.
Today, at sixty years old, I can honestly say I've never smoked, never used drugs, and couldn't tell you what alcohol tastes like. My grandfather taught me that character isn't built by what you say—it's built by how you live.
Even though I loved living with him, there was only one thing I wanted.
I wanted my dad to come home.
When he finally returned from Saudi Arabia, we moved back to Trenton. Before long, he married a good woman who became my stepmother.
At first, I fought it.
Like a lot of kids who have been through divorce, I didn't want another family.
I didn't want another brother.
I didn't want another set of relatives.
Looking back now, I couldn't have been more wrong.
Today, the Driggers family is just as much my family as my own blood.
And the woman I resisted the most became one of the greatest blessings of my life.
She reached out to my mother.
She rebuilt a bridge that had almost completely disappeared.
Because of her, my brothers and I were able to have our mom back in our lives.
By the time my mother passed away in 2022, every wound between us had been healed.
The scars never disappear.
But forgiveness does something remarkable.
It allows you to stop carrying them as a burden.
My stepmother passed away in 1988, but her influence is still with me every single day.
Long before any of this, another love had already taken hold of my imagination.
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Auto racing.
My dad was a huge NASCAR fan, and i became a NASCAR and INDYCAR fan and before I was eight years old I was already cheering for Richard Petty and Mario Andretti.
Then, in 1980, everything changed again.
We were at one of my dad's friend's houses watching ABC's Wide World of Sports when coverage of the 1980 Winter Olympics came on.
For the first time in my life, I saw a bobsled hurtling down an ice track.
I was completely captivated.
I remember thinking:
"That has to be the coolest thing I've ever seen."
Growing up in a tiny one-stoplight town in North Florida, in a family that struggled financially, becoming an Olympian wasn't even something you dreamed about.
It was impossible.
Or so I thought.
Twenty-eight years later...
I would find myself standing at that very same Olympic track, chasing a dream that began in a living room in rural Florida.
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Learning to Believe in Myself
"In 1979, our family went through one of the hardest years of our lives. My dad lost his job, and the six of us—my dad, my stepmom, my two brothers, my stepbrother, and I—lived in a 20-foot by 20-foot shed.
We had no running water.
When we needed a bathroom, we went into the woods.
Looking back now, some people might feel sorry for us.
I don't.
My dad wasn't lazy.
He wasn't a man who quit.
He was a father doing everything he could to keep a roof over his family's head while he searched for a way forward.
As a child, I didn't fully understand that.
As a father myself, I understand it completely."
Living all those years without my mom took a toll on me in ways I didn't fully understand until I was much older. Looking back now, I think it damaged my confidence, my self-esteem, and my sense of worth.
My brothers seemed to excel at everything. Both of my younger brothers, along with my stepbrother, became Little League All-Stars.
I was the kid who couldn't hit the baseball.
Before I say anything else, I want you to understand something.
I loved my dad.
And I know my dad loved me.
He wasn't a bad father.
He just didn't know how to help a little boy whose confidence had already been shaken by life.
Instead of encouraging me to keep working, he tried to steer me toward other things.
My dad came to two of my Little League games.
I struck out every time I came to bat.
He never came back.
What nobody realized at the time was that I had 20/200 vision in my left eye. What most people can see clearly from 200 feet away, I have to be within 20 feet to see.
Trying to hit a baseball wasn't exactly easy.
By the time I reached high school, things hadn't changed much.
My dad came to one football game.
I didn't get into the game.
He never came to another one.
Meanwhile, one of my younger brothers played junior varsity football, and Dad went to watch him.
Did those moments hurt?
Absolutely.
Did they also motivate me?
More than anyone could have imagined.
One afternoon after football practice, a former player named Gary Parcells pulled me aside.
The funny thing was, Gary and I hadn't exactly been friends. We had been on the same Little League baseball team years earlier, and to be honest, we didn't like each other very much.
Then one day, Gary decided to help me.
Gary probably had no idea he was changing my life. He wasn't trying to inspire me. Coach was frustrated with me, and Gary simply took a few minutes to show me what I was doing wrong. It probably didn't seem like a big deal to him that afternoon. Looking back all these years later, I realize it was.
I went from being the kid who couldn't make a tackle to leading the first semi-professional football team I played for in tackles.
Today...
I call Gary my friend.
He wasn't the only one.
Teammate Lyndell Howell and Assistant Coach Carl Randolph invested in me as well.
Coach Randolph was always encouraging me.
Another assistant coach looked me in the eye one day and told me I should quit sports.
I'm glad I didn't listen.
Looking back now, my athletic career ended up being one he probably wishes he had.
High school also gave me two of the greatest friends God could have ever placed in my life.
The first was Ronnie Jordan.
Ronnie has never judged me.
He has stood beside me through everything.
He knows the story of the first girl I ever kissed.
He helped me through my divorce.
Even today, he lives right beside me, and I know I can tell him anything without fear of being judged.
Then, during my senior year, I met another lifelong friend from a rival high school.
His name was Eugene Thompson.
If Ronnie accepted me exactly as I was...
Eugene challenged me to become more than I thought I could be.
He taught me confidence.
And yes...he also accidentally transformed my dating life.
Let's just say Eugene had no shortage of girls interested in him, and somehow being around him dramatically improved my dating life too.
I'll leave the rest of those stories to your imagination but needless to say business was good.
Ronnie taught me unconditional friendship.
Eugene taught me accountability.
Looking back now, I don't know how one person gets lucky enough to have both.
Before racing and before skeleton became part of my story, Eugene and I became two of the best jam skaters in Florida.
Yes...
I could breakdance on roller skates.
We competed on stages in Miami Beach and later in Venice Beach, California, in a national competition sponsored by Red Bull.
Life has a funny way of taking you places you never expected.
When it comes to my marriage, I'll keep this part short.
My ex-wife and I have a good relationship today, and I believe it's important to say this:
Please don't judge her.
It takes two imperfect people to destroy a marriage.
We had five incredible children together.
We separated in 2002, and our divorce became final in 2007.
I was awarded custody, and raising my children became the greatest responsibility of my life.
Looking back over those years, I realize something.
Every person I just told you about—Gary, Coach Randolph, Lyndell, Ronnie, Eugene, my dad, my grandfather, and my stepmom—gave me something I had been missing for most of my childhood.
They gave me confidence.
Little by little...
They helped me become the person I had always believed I could be.
And without realizing it...
They were preparing me for dreams that were still years away.
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The Family I Never Expected
The Driggers Family
My dad married my stepmom when I was around eleven years old. At the time, I didn't want a new stepmom, a new stepbrother, or the family that came with them. Looking back, I was just a kid trying to hold on to the life I had before everything changed.
Whenever we would go visit my step-grandparents, I would often sit out in the car listening to the radio because I didn't even want to go inside. I wanted nothing to do with this new family. My Uncle Duane Driggers always seemed pretty cool, but I still wasn't interested in getting close to any of them.
I had no idea that one day they would become as much my family as my own blood.
What I saw as strangers, God saw as people who would help shape my life.
Over the years, the Driggers family became one of the greatest blessings I could have asked for. My Uncle Duane and my Aunts Becky and Kathy all played important roles in the person I would become. Uncle Duane spent countless hours playing football with us, encouraging us, and believing in us. After I graduated high school, he even became my first boss at Suwannee Lumber, giving me my very first full-time job.
The older I've gotten, the more I've realized something important. God wasn't trying to replace my family.
He was expanding it.
The Driggers family didn't make me forget where I came from. They simply gave me more people to love, more people who loved me, and another place where I belonged.
Looking back now, I can honestly say they were one of God's greatest gifts to me.
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A New Beginning
Jumping ahead to 2001, one week before September 11th, I got my first airport job. I was hired by Aircraft Service International Group (ASIG) as a ramp agent at Tampa International Airport.
Our company handled flights for JetBlue, Air Canada, Spirit, America West, Condor, and British Airways. Every day I worked around aircraft I had only dreamed about as a kid—Boeing 737s, Airbus A319s and A320s, MD-80s, Boeing 757s, 777s, and even the Queen of the Skies, the Boeing 747.
For a boy who had graduated from a small high school in North Florida and whose first job was stacking lumber at Suwannee Lumber in Cross City, it felt unbelievable. Every airplane that pushed back from the gate reminded me how much bigger the world really was.
Unfortunately, it was also during this time that my marriage began to fall apart.
In 2003, needing a fresh start, I accepted a position with Signature Flight Support at St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport (PIE). There I worked flights for USA3000 and ATA Airlines while trying to rebuild my life.
Forty Years Old... and Starting Again
In 2006, at forty years old, I made a decision that probably sounded crazy to most people.
I decided to play football again.
Part of it was because I simply loved the game. But another part of it had a purpose. I knew I was still trying to convince Olympic coaches that I wasn't too old to become a skeleton athlete.
So I joined a local semi-professional football team.
The first time I stood in the huddle during a game, I looked around at my teammates and realized something funny.
The last time I had played football, most of these guys had still been wearing diapers.
It turned out to be an incredible season.
We made the playoffs, and for the first time in my life I played on a winning football team.
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The Letter That Changed Everything
In 2007, before football season began, something arrived in my mailbox that changed my life forever.
A letter from the United States Olympic Committee.
After nine years of trying to earn an invitation, I had finally been accepted into the Olympic Development Program for skeleton.
For those unfamiliar with the sport, skeleton is one of the fastest and most intimidating events in the Winter Olympics. Athletes sprint alongside a small sled before diving onto it head-first and racing face-down through an ice track at speeds approaching 90 miles per hour while experiencing forces of up to five times the force of gravity.
Most of the athletes came from northern states where winter sports were common.
I came from Florida.
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The Worst... For One Day
Twenty-three athletes arrived in Park City, Utah for training.
On the first day, we didn't start from the top of the mountain. We only reached around 35 to 40 miles per hour.
When the times were posted...
I was twenty-third.
Dead last.
That night I went back to my room thinking,
"Well... at least I can say I tried."
I honestly believed I would spend the next couple of weeks enjoying the experience before heading home.
Instead of sleeping, I stayed awake studying.
I watched videos.
I studied every corner of the track.
I read notes left by Olympians.
I replayed every mistake I had made.
The next morning something changed.
I finished tenth.
More importantly...
I could feel myself adapting.
For the first time, I believed I belonged.
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Finding My Sport
On the third day, some of us were allowed to start from the very top of the track, where speeds climbed toward 80 miles per hour.
From that day forward, something incredible happened.
The fastest time each day belonged to one person.
Me.
As the speeds increased...
As the turns became more violent...
As the G-forces climbed to nearly five Gs...
I became more comfortable and better.
By my fourth day sliding from the top of the track, my times would have been fast enough to place twentieth out of twenty-six athletes at the 2002 Winter Olympics on that very same track.
Four days earlier...
I had been dead last.
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By the time training ended, people around the program were saying something I had never heard before.
My name...
...and the word Olympics...
...in the same sentence.
I left Park City with more than memories.
I left with something I had never possessed before.
A legitimate path toward becoming an Olympian.
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Choosing My Greatest Dream
2007 would be my final season playing semi-professional football. I was on a new team, we struggled, and at 41 years old I was getting tired of being hit.
Looking back, though, it still amazes me.
One weekend I was sliding head-first down an Olympic bobsled track in Park City, Utah at nearly 80 miles per hour while competing in the Utah Winter Games. The very next weekend I was back in St. Petersburg, Florida, standing in a football huddle for the first game of our spring season.
Not many people get to live two dreams at the same time.
I did.
Walking Among Olympians
In 2008, I began training out of the United States Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid, New York.
To a kid who grew up in a small town in North Florida, walking the halls of that facility as an athlete was almost surreal. Every hallway reminded me that I was surrounded by some of the best athletes in the country.
For the first time in my life, the Olympic dream wasn't just something I imagined.
It was real.
Then came the conversation that changed everything.
I was told that if I truly wanted a realistic chance to make the Olympic team, I would need to relocate to Lake Placid and train there full time.
There was only one problem.
My five children lived with me in Florida. The State of Florida would never have allowed me to move them halfway across the country away from their mother, and even if it had, I wouldn't have wanted to.
For me, that wasn't a decision at all.
I thanked everyone for believing in me.
I thanked them for the opportunity.
Then I went home.
People have asked me over the years if I regret walking away from my Olympic dream.
The answer is simple.
Not for one second.
The Olympics had been my dream for nearly a decade.
But my children had been my dream from the day each of them was born.
Dreams are important. Family is irreplaceable.
If I had chosen the Olympics, maybe I would have become an Olympian.
Instead, I became something I value even more—a father who was there.
Today, my children and my grandchildren are still the greatest accomplishment of my life. They are the people who have loved me through every victory and every disappointment. They are the reason I kept getting back up every time life knocked me down.
Without them...
None of the rest of this story would matter.
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Where It All Began
My love for racing started as a kid.
One day in 1983, my high school football teammate, Lyndell Howell, invited me over to his house. His dad, Buddy Howell, and him raced go-karts, and that afternoon they showed me their racing karts.
The moment I saw it, I knew I had to have one.
Later that year I bought my very first race kart for $300.
It was race-ready...
...at least that's what I was told.
The engine was worn out, and neither my dad nor I knew the first thing about setting up a race kart. We didn't know what tire pressures worked, or even how to tune an engine properly.
We were learning together.
Looking back now, those days are some of my favorite memories because every little improvement felt like a victory.
Some people can't remember much about their first race.
I remember mine like it was yesterday.
I weighed about 140 pounds, and the only helmet I could borrow belonged to a friend who weighed around 250 pounds.
Needless to say...
His helmet didn't exactly fit.
Trying to race while your helmet kept sliding around on your head makes for an interesting afternoon.
I finished dead last.
To make matters even more humbling, the kart directly in front of me happened to be driven by a young woman, and no matter what I tried, I just couldn't find a way around her.
At the time, I wasn't laughing.
Looking back...
It's one of my favorite racing memories.
The following week things were already getting better. I ran second for most of the race before the third-place driver spun me out near the end. I don't remember many of the race results from that first season—it was over forty years ago—but I remember something much more important.
I had fallen completely in love with racing.
Those first few years were spent racing dirt tracks in Live Oak, Maxville, and Bell, Florida.
Eventually I made the move to pavement racing.
Ambassador Speedway in Wimauma, Florida became my home track, and over the years I was fortunate enough to win many races there. More importantly, I made lifelong friends.
When I look back on those early years, I don't think about wins or loses.
I think about loading up the race kart with my dad, driving to the racetrack, and learning something new every weekend. We didn't have the best equipment or the biggest budget, but we had enough to chase a dream.
Looking back now, it's amazing to think that a $300 race kart, a borrowed helmet that didn't fit, and a father who was learning right alongside me would turn into a racing journey that has lasted more than four decades.
At the time, I thought I was simply buying a go-kart.
I had no idea I was beginning a journey that would shape the rest of my life.
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The Southeast Champ Kart Series (SECKS)
I raced in the Southeast Champ Kart Series for three seasons—2011, 2012, and 2013. It was one of the toughest karting series in Florida and was run by Phil and Joan Harp. The races were held as part of Saturday night stock car programs, and it wasn't uncommon to have fields of more than twenty of the best champ kart drivers in the state.
We traveled all over Florida, racing at tracks such as Orlando Speed World, Auburndale Speedway, Citrus County Speedway, Bronson Speedway, Showtime Speedway, Charlotte County Speedway, and DeSoto Super Speedway.
I only competed in a couple of races during the 2011 season, but in 2012 I committed to running the entire championship.
It didn't start well.
I finished dead last in the first three races of the season and was lapped every time. At that point, Phil Harp and another racer came over and helped set up my kart. That one act of kindness changed everything.
From that race forward, I was never lapped again.
By the middle of the season, I had climbed all the way to 11th in the championship standings, and by the end of the year I finished fourth overall.
What makes that finish even more meaningful is what people didn't see.
At the time, I was making just $9 an hour while raising my youngest daughter, who was ten years old. Her older brothers and sisters had already grown up and moved out, so it was just the two of us. Every dollar mattered. Buying another set of tires meant taking money away from something far more important, so I made the decision to race with what I had.
Nearly every driver I raced against had multiple sets of tires and often mounted a fresh set every race weekend.
I couldn't afford that.
I raced the entire season on one set of tires.
When other teams were chasing speed with new equipment, I was trying to find it through preparation, consistency, and determination.
I wasn't the best-funded driver in the field.
I was probably the least.
But I learned something that season that has stayed with me for the rest of my racing career.
Money can buy speed. It can't buy determination.
My best performances that season came at Auburndale Speedway. Earlier in the year I finished fourth in one feature race, and later Auburndale hosted its annual Charity Truckers event, a two-night race weekend that remains one of my favorite racing memories.
I wish I had video of that Friday night.
We had twenty-one karts, and the field was split into two heat races before everyone came together for the feature. I started ninth out of eleven in my heat race and drove to third in just ten laps, finishing right behind Jarred Holle and Tara Henderson, two of the best drivers in the series with well-funded teams.
The kart was hooked up.
It felt like I could put it anywhere on the racetrack I wanted.
I started eighth in the twenty-five lap feature.
After only a couple of laps, I got shuffled out of the draft.
In champ kart racing, losing the draft is almost like dragging an anchor behind you.
One by one...
Everyone drove by.
Around lap five we had a caution.
As we slowly circled the track waiting for the restart, I started counting karts in front of me.
One...
Two...
Three...
By the time I reached seventeen...
I realized I had fallen all the way back to eighteenth.
Fortunately, the restart would be single file.
That meant I had another chance to get back into the draft.
When the green flag waved, I started picking them off one by one.
During the race, I believe it was Scott Holley who flipped his kart into the catch fence, although after all these years I can't say with absolute certainty that it happened during this race weekend.
What I do remember is driving underneath a kart at nearly ninety miles per hour.
One second I was racing.
The next, I was wondering if I was going to clear a flipping kart.
I'll admit it.
I squeezed my eyes shut for just a split second because I honestly didn't know if I was going to make it through.
Once the caution came out, I drove past the accident scene and immediately looked over to check on Scott.
Seeing him standing beside his kart was one of the biggest reliefs of the night.
At ninety miles per hour, a champ kart hitting a concrete wall is something no driver ever wants to see.
By the time the checkered flag fell, I had fought all the way back to eighth—exactly where I had started.
At one point during the race I had worked my way as high as sixth, trading positions with Doug Schmidt and Phil Harp, two of the best drivers in the series.
Looking back over forty-two years of racing, that Friday night at Auburndale may have been the best drive of my career.
Most racers either camped at the track or stayed in hotels that night.
I slept in the back of my Ford Explorer.
Looking back...
I wouldn't trade that night for anything.
At the time, I never thought of it as a sacrifice.
I was simply another racer trying to make it to Saturday night's green flag.
The next night...
Every team unloaded fresh tires.
It was one of the biggest crowds we'd race in front of all year.
I looked around pit road.
Twenty-one karts.
Twenty drivers mounted brand-new tires.
I didn't.
I was the only driver still racing on the same tires I had started the season with.
The night before I had raced near the front.
Tonight...
I finished eighteenth.
Same track.
Same kart.
Same driver.
The only thing that changed...
...was everyone else's tires.
That weekend taught me a lesson I'll never forget.
Talent matters.
Hard work matters.
Determination matters.
But equipment matters too.
I spent an entire season proving how far determination could take me.
Eventually...
Reality caught up with determination.
Even today, that old 2001 Shadow chassis still sits in my garage.
When I look at it, I don't see outdated equipment or worn-out tires.
I see three years of memories.
I see determination.
And I'm reminded that you don't have to have the best equipment to give your very best effort.
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2013 SECKS Season
My job interfered with much of my 2013 season, and between my work schedule and my budget I was only able to compete in about half of the races. Unfortunately, I have had a difficult time finding many of the official results from that season. The one result I have been able to locate was the opening race at Showtime Speedway, where I finished sixth in a field of seventeen karts.
One of the best things to come out of that season had nothing to do with race results.
A racer I had known years earlier at Ambassador Go-Kart Track, Mitchell Workman, bought a champ kart and joined the series. We became teammates, but more importantly, we became friends.
Mitchell was the best teammate I ever had.
Racing can sometimes be an individual sport, but having a teammate you trust makes the long nights in the garage and the weekends at the racetrack even more enjoyable. We pushed each other, helped each other, and shared the highs and lows that come with racing. Looking back, one of the greatest things I gained from those three years wasn't just experience behind the wheel—it was another lifelong friend.
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Allegiant Air
I joined Allegiant Air in 2015 and remained with the company until June 2017 before returning in July 2018, where I have proudly continued my career ever since. In November 2018, I was promoted to Lead, and in 2023 I was honored to be promoted to Supervisor.
I genuinely enjoy working for Allegiant and am grateful for the opportunities the company has provided me. Throughout my career, I have had the privilege of working alongside many outstanding people and have built friendships that I truly value. The teamwork, support, and relationships I have experienced at Allegiant have made it one of the most rewarding chapters of my professional career.
As I pursue my dream of competing in the ARCA Menards Series, I hope to represent Allegiant Air with the same professionalism, dedication, and pride that I strive to bring to work every day.