Racing has been a part of life for third-generation driver Skylar Gee for as long as he can remember. When asked, he states that he was “practically born at the race track.” From an early age, the native of Leduc, Canada, knew that he wanted to follow in his father's and grandfather’s footsteps and be a racer.

The 18-year-old is the son of Tim Gee, who is one of just two Canadian drivers to ever win an A-Main event with the World of Outlaws Craftsman Sprint Car Series. The younger Gee has been steadily climbing the ladder in the sport, ascending from Quarter Midgets to the Mini Sprint ranks to competing full-time with the American Sprint Car Series (ASCS) National Tour.

Gee will kick off the 2018 ASCS National Tour schedule on Feb. 15-17 as part of the 42nd Annual Winter Nationals East Bay Raceway in Tampa, FL. The entire event — along with the Modified and Crate Late Model weeks — is streaming live on FloRacing.

“Racing is really all I've ever known,” Gee said. “My grandpa raced way back when — up in Alaska and the Yukon. My dad then got into it and pretty soon they were living in Indiana and Outlaw racing. I don’t know if I can live up to what my dad did. He was pretty good. I’d definitely like to get to where he was and hopefully win a World of Outlaws A-Main one day.”

Gee completed his first full season with the Lucas Oil American Sprint Car Series (ASCS) in 2017, visiting the majority of the tracks on the schedule for the first time in his young career. 

On the strength of 13 top 10 finishes, including a pair of top five showings, he was named the series Rookie of the Year. Gee wrapped up the year eighth in the final ASCS point standings. Late in the season, he finished seventh with the Bumper to Bumper IRA Sprint Car Series at Clay County Fair Speedway in Spencer, Iowa, in a stacked field with drivers such as Kerry Madsen, Ian Madsen, Dusty Zomer, and Terry McCarl.

 "It’s pretty cool to have people like that in the sport.”

Hailing from the Edmonton area in Canada, Gee found it was not feasible to get back home and to his own shop during the season. In May, he crossed paths with Bryan Sundby, who let him stay at his shop in Newton, Iowa. That made traveling the ASCS circuit a lot more manageable.

“It was a challenge for sure,” Gee noted of running the ASCS tour. “I thought I had help lined up when I left home and those plans fell through. Pretty soon I was all by myself out there. Bryan (Sundby) and his dad, Dave, helped me get better all year. We really started getting better once we started working with them. It was huge. I honestly don’t know if I would have been able to run the whole deal if we didn't have somewhere centrally located like that to work out of.”

While winning is always the goal, when it comes to helping fellow races in a pinch, the racing community always steps up. That was exactly the case late in the 2017 season, when Gee and his team had trouble with their hauler, which would have prevented them from making it to the season finale at Cocopah Speedway in Somerton, AZ.

In stepped Royal Jones, the promoter of Southern New Mexico Speedway in Las Cruces, NM, a fellow racer and owner of Messila Valley Transportation, and long-time sponsor of numerous sprint car drivers, who made sure that Gee’s No. 99 machine made it to the track.

“I was lucky enough to meet Royal (Jones) at his race track in Las Cruces, (Southern New Mexico Speedway),” Gee said. “He said if I ever needed anything or broke down he would be more than willing to help. Sure enough, the end of the year came around and we needed some help and he was there for us. It’s pretty cool to have people like that in the sport.”

(Mike Spieker/Speedway Shots)

An ace that Gee has up his sleeve is that he has always had a deep interest in track prep, which is a vital part of dirt track racing. 

When Gee was still a boy, the World of Outlaws Craftsman Sprint Car Series made the trek north to Castrol Raceway in Edmonton, and he rode in the tractors and other equipment and helped prepare the surface for racing action.

“There was a time between when I was about 8 to 10 years old, when the racing dried up,” Gee said. “Between those ages there was not a lot of racing to do, but I still loved going to the race track. Being a kid and riding around in tractors and playing in the mud all day was pretty fun. Having done that, now I can see what it takes to get a track a certain way. I think I can judge what a track is going to do a lot better thanks to that.”

The 2018 season will again see Gee take to the road with the ASCS National Tour. He looks to score his first win with the series. 

"We keep accumulating more equipment and building the team up every year."

Gee won five races in 2016 with the ASCS Frontier Region. Three of those victories came at a pair of tracks in Montana as well scoring two wins in Wyoming. Gee also won the Canadian Gold Cup at Castrol Raceway in Edmonton in 2015, joining his father on the win list of the famed event.

“We are working on everything for the 2018 season,” he noted. “We were lacking in being good early in the night, but that can be tough when you are going to tracks that you have never been to before. We definitely need to be better early in the night and carry that throughout the entire race program. We’d like to be in the top 10 and top five come feature time. You can’t win races when you start 20th on back. I’m really looking forward to this season, because I have been to most of the race tracks and we have laps at them and a good notebook. Hopefully we can be good the entire night and win some races this year.”

Looking into the future, Gee’s ultimate goal is to race full-time with the World of Outlaws Craftsman Sprint Car Series.

Gee’s father competed with the Outlaws for a handful of years, finishing among the top 10 in the series standings four times, including a career-best seventh-place showing in 1986. 

While still just 18 years old, the younger Gee is taking it one year at a time and getting as much seat time and gaining as much experience as he can. Gee has another advantage in having his father in his corner, to bounce ideas off and to help guide him.

“Racing with the World of Outlaws is what I am working for,” Gee said. “We keep accumulating more equipment and building the team up every year. Hopefully one day we can get up to that level and race full-time with those guys. When my dad is not around, I am pretty sure I call him five or six times a day. When he is there at the track, I am pretty dependent on him. Since he has driven, he gives me the driving points and he works on the car as well. It’s huge to have him there.”

By Tony Veneziano

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