By Tony Veneziano

Justin Peck looks at every trip to the race track as a learning experience. Being just 19 years old and continuing his transition from Midgets to winged sprint cars, the native of Monrovia, IN, adds to his knowledge base each time he is behind the wheel, as well as each time he talks to fellow racers in the pit area.

Peck began to migrate to the winged sprint cars last year while still sprinkling in some midget starts. This season he is predominately running winged sprint cars but also hopes to run a few midget shows later in the year.

“I try to look at it as I can learn from everyone,” Peck said. “You go talk around the pit area and get to talking with guys like Chad Kemenah, Donny Schatz, and Shane Stewart. You get to talk to all these guys you grew up hearing about. I try to leave every conversation with those guys smarter than I walked into. You can learn a lot from those guys and it's cool to be able to chat it up and talk about old times and side-by-side battles.”

During his time running with the Lucas Oil POWRi Midget Series, Peck was able to watch winged sprint cars on numerous occasions, in the form of the Midwest Open Wheel Association (MOWA) Series, as the two organizations co-sanctioned a number of races. This began to pique Peck’s interest and the ball began rolling in terms of making the transition.

“I've always had an interest in the World of Outlaws,” he shared. “Toward the later years of my midget racing, my dad and I had a talk about what the next step would be and what we really wanted to do. I told him that I wanted to be an Outlaw and be on the World of Outlaws tour. That's what we are working toward.”

Peck took to a winged sprint car pretty quickly last year, as he was victorious in just his sixth start in one of the ultra-high-horsepower machines, defeating the Arctic Cat All Star Circuit of Champions at Macon Speedway in Illinois. That night, he charged from the fifth starting spot to win the second heat race over three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion and USAC Triple Crown winner Tony Stewart, which put Peck in the dash. Peck ran fourth in the dash, which put him on the outside of the second row for the main event.

“There is definitely a learning curve going from the midget to the winged sprint car,” Peck explained. “The biggest adjustment is finding clean air and trying to stay out of dirty air. That, mixed with the horsepower, was a big difference. You work the throttle different in a winged sprint car since you have so much power. I felt like it didn’t take too long to adapt.

“This year we have found some extra speed in the race car and we are getting everything dialed in,” he added. We keep learning as we go and I still have a lot of learning to do on the bigger race tracks. With the midget, we ran the smaller tracks, because we didn't have the equipment to run the big tracks. I’m more of a bullring guy, but we trying to broaden our horizons and step out and run some bigger tracks.”

Peck burst onto the national radar earlier this season when he led 20 laps of the main event with the World of Outlaws Craftsman Sprint Car Series at Tri-State Speedway in Indiana. He took the lead early from David Gravel, who won 18 races with the Outlaws last season. Peck would engage in a thrilling side-by-side battle with Sheldon Haudenschild, who has four Outlaws wins already this season, for a number of laps. 

Contact between the pair ended the night for both, but not before Peck turned quite a few heads. He opened the night as the fastest qualifier in Flight A of time trials, then won the first heat race to lock himself in the dash, where he ran fourth.

"It was a cool race for sure and it was pretty humbling,” Peck said. “To be able to run toward the front of the pack with the best of the best, was amazing. Those are guys that I have looked up to my whole career. I got to race with Sheldon Haudenschild for the lead for a while. Even though he is not one of the veterans, the Haudenschild name is legendary. Running up front with those guys makes us work that much harder to hopefully be able to do that again with the Outlaws.”

Picked up the win tonight with @mowasprints! This @drcchassis @AfcoProShocks is absolutely flying right now! pic.twitter.com/Ji8VEvBBot

— Justin Peck (@justin_peck5) May 27, 2018

Peck made up for that near miss a couple of weeks later, picking up a MOWA Series win at Federated Auto Parts Raceway at I-55 in Pevely, MO. He is currently fourth in MOWA points, despite not competing in a couple of events.

“We’ve had good speed this season. We just hadn't quite had the results we were hoping for. It just seemed like I'd get bottled up here or break an engine there. Things just kept happening and we weren't getting the results we were looking for. It was nice to show that we still had the speed and be able to run up front and get a win.”

Peck and his family-owned team have done some extra traveling this year. They recently made the trip north to Wisconsin to compete with the World of Outlaws Craftsman Sprint Car Series at Wilmot Raceway. In his debut at the third-mile bullring, Peck raced his way into the main event but had engine trouble prior to the feature, which sidelined him for the remainder of the night. If it had not been for the engine trouble, Peck would have raced with the Outlaws at Fairbury, IL, as well, just a few days later. 

With both of his engines currently being refreshened, Peck will have to take a couple of weeks off but is very optimistic for the remainder of the season when he gets two fresh engines back.

“The guys on the Outlaws tour have to adapt to a new track just about every day and that's what makes them so good,” he shared. “It really shows what sets them apart from the rest of us when it comes to the talent curve. We tackled two nights of MOWA racing and then went up to Wisconsin with the Outlaws and that puts a lot of wear and tear on you. That’s kind of what we are trying to get used to.”