Motorsports

Steering for the top

Bill Lester is 45, but his thirst for speed isn't much different than his Matchbox car days.

By BRANT JAMES
Published June 24, 2006

Bill Lester is different. He's trying to break into the Nextel Cup series at age 45. He's a University of California-trained computer and electrical engineer whose father is a chemistry professor at the same prestigious Berkeley campus. And he's African-American, just the sixth to start a race at NASCAR's highest level, and the first in 20 years. Days after he made his second Cup start of the season at Michigan - finishing 32nd but on the lead lap for the first time - Lester was in Tampa Bay for a sponsor commitment and a first-pitch ceremony with the Devil Rays. Chatting with Lester in a Checkers boardroom overlooking Interstate 275, Times staff writer Brant James learned how Lester is much like every other kid who grew up loving cars - Matchbox, that is - and about being fast and furious before it became a movie series.

You left a very good job to give this risky, sometimes discouraging profession a try. Why do that?

This is what I have a passion for. This is what I feel I was given a gift to do, and at the end of the day I want to be happy. I want to be successful, and I define success as happiness. It's not how much money you make or people you are responsible for managing or whatever the case is, but the next morning just how excited and energized you are about what you're about to do. My day in the race car compares to absolutely nothing else in my life, and it's what makes me come alive.

People ask how I can leave the stability of a stable income and the responsibility and money and so on, and I say it's because I wasn't happy. I wasn't happy. Now I feel like I am successful because I am happy.

Something else must give you that buzz.

I am an adrenaline junkie, so speed is it for me. I used to snow-ski downhill in competition and that was speed, and I ran track and just anything that had to do with speed and adrenaline rush. I'm the type person who loves roller coasters for the same reason. It's just adrenaline. That's why racing suits me so well.

When did you discover this malady?

As soon as I got my driver's license. I was experimenting with the outer edge of control back in 1979 or '80. When I was growing up I was sliding around corners with four-wheel drift and tail out and all that sort of stuff that gets you a great exhibitionist speeding ticket.

I was fast and furious before it was a movie.

What did you drive?

A Mazda RX3. Before that I was driving my parents' cars, but I had a Mazda and did all the things to make it run faster and handle better and all that sort of thing. I had a roll bar in it - in a street car - fire extinguisher, so I was pretty serious about it. I figured before I killed myself or somebody else, take it to a racetrack.

A lot of drivers had a father or uncle who raced or at least tinkered with cars to get them started, but not you.

My father took me to a race when I was 8 years old and that's kind of what set the hook, gave me the exposure to racing. I saw racing on television, but I wasn't really passionate about it until I got to experience it. It was Laguna Seca (in Salinas, Calif.), kind of on a lark. My father wasn't into racing, but a friend of his invited my father out and said: "Hey, bring your son. He might enjoy it." I guess my father had told him I was always into Hot Wheels and Matchbox as a kid and always loved to see Ferraris and Porsches and read car magazines. So he brought me along, and it was the biggest kick I'd ever had.

Obviously, your goal now is a full-time Nextel Cup ride.

Of course. Every driver wants to race at the pinnacle, at the top level, and Nextel Cup racing is it in this country. It's great fun and great competition racing in the Cup series, but I want to race where I can race what is considered and established as the best of the best and make the biggest name for myself as a race car driver, be on the grandest stage.

That said, there are four rides on two teams open for the new Nextel Cup Toyota program next season, including two with Bill Davis Racing. You just so happen to race in the Truck series full time for Davis. How much dialogue have you had about wanting one of those Cup seats?

They know what my desire is, no question about that. All these races are essentially an audition to be considered for one of those coveted Toyota Camry Cup rides. There's no doubt I want to be racing on Sundays full time next year, and I'm hoping to think that I can give Toyota and Bill Davis Racing reason to consider me.

Have they told you what you need to do to get one of those rides?

No promises. I'm sure they're taking a look at me and a bunch of other race car drivers, and I'm hoping to think I'll get the nod.

It must be good to be under the roof already, though.

That's a good way to describe it. I started out with Toyota when they came into NASCAR in the Truck series in 2004. I've been with Bill Davis ever since, so I think I'm in an pretty enviable position.

[Last modified June 24, 2006, 07:22:59]