The road to victory

ASHEBORO — Asheboro now has a national racing champion.

London McKenzie drove to the Semi-Pro Division Nationals feature victory during the 2024 Legend Car Asphalt Nationals at Dominion Raceway in Virginia on Saturday, Oct. 26. McKenzie also earned the National points championship. 

London just turned 15 on Oct. 15 so you would think his racing career is just getting started. Actually, he’s a seven-year veteran.

“I’ve been racing since I was 8,” he said last Wednesday before going to another race in Salisbury. His competitive racing began in the Bandelero series, which puts youth in “shrunk-down” racers with go-kart engines. 

He moved up to Legends when he was 12. A Legend car, London said, is styled after a 1934 Ford coupe but just two-fifths scale. It runs on a 1200-cc Yamaha motorcycle engine with a top speed of 140 miles per hour.

Last year, London won the Caraway Speedway Legend championship. He became a national qualifier at Caraway, which he calls his home track. He said he runs Late Model as well as Legend there.

Having gotten a ride with 860 Motorsports in Mooresville, London now races all over the country, from Las Vegas to Florida. 860 Motorsports, he said, has a “focus on developing drivers in Legend. There are several drivers ages 15-17, making us one of the youngest teams. It’s a good experience for me. The fun element is I get to interact well with my teammates.”

Going to the championship weekend at Dominion Raceway in Woodford, Va., London was one of the favorites, having won 19 of the 50 races in the series. But that made it a stressful situation for him.

“I felt the tension (the night before the big race),” he said. “I woke up around 3 a.m., looked at my phone and saw the lineup. I couldn’t sleep for an hour and a half.”

Dominion is a four-tenths-mile track, similar to Bristol, London said. “It’s a wide track where you can run three wide. Aerodynamics are a factor with speeds over 100 miles an hour.”

The first day is for practice, then qualifying. The next day, 12-car heat races determine which 28 of the 40 drivers get into the main event on race day.

“I qualified second and won my heat to start first,” London said. “It was a cool experience. But leading the field to the green flag was a big responsibility.

“Going in I felt my chances were as good as anybody,” he said, noting that five drivers were considered the favorites. That meant there would be “four losers and one champion. There was a good chance I wasn’t going to win.

“One minor mistake can cost you everything,” London said. “It can destroy your car and your safety. You want to drive smart and try to stay up front.

“The crazy thing is racing is so unpredictable,” he said. “You can’t control the other drivers around you. A lot of things you can’t control.

“The highs are so high but the lows are so costly that you want to beat yourself up. But the highs get you hooked.”

The championship race was 35 laps and London led 33 of them. “I came out pretty strong but then the rear-end heated up and the car got loose,” meaning the rear wheels were sliding and he had to slow his pace.

As the laps were winding down, London was in a battle with two other drivers. “They got together at the end and allowed me to take the win.”

London has already been diversifying, running on dirt tracks with Micro Sprint cars with 600-cc engines. He said there are dirt track cars with wings and with no wings. “The wing makes it easier to drive.”

Driving on dirt, London said, “helps me on asphalt, sharpens my skills. It’s such a different form of racing — the throttle control and car control. I’m more aware of my surroundings since there are no mirrors.”

London said all the cars he drives require “the same safety equipment as the big boys. And we’re allowed to have spotters at some events. I prefer no spotter, to use my own head and thoughts, to develop as a driver.”

Next year, he said, he plans to race Legends and Late Model, and, if the car is ready, try his hand at ARCA, Automobile Racing Club of America, a subsidiary of NASCAR with cars similar to those in the Cup Series.

“Next year we’ll pick and choose tracks,” London said. “I would like to keep progressing. My dream is to be in Cup and race with the best. It’s hard to say since it’s such an evolving sport. I would like to make one level in NASCAR.”

His racing has put him in competition with some of the top up-and-coming drivers. “It’s cool that we’re racing against future Cup drivers and one day a champion.”

Moving up to higher levels, London said, means racing “more experienced drivers, but I become more experienced. When I’ve driven more powerful cars, I became a more advanced driver. From a year ago, I’m a different driver with a different driving style.”

Often London finds himself driving next to those in Cup, drivers who enjoy doing Legends or dirt. “It’s cool to be out there with people like Kyle Busch, Christopher Bell and Chase Elliott.”

Running a full calendar, London said he’s missed out on birthday parties and other special events. “But it’s worth the effort.”

Those sacrifices could lead to fulfilling his goal to some day “race with the best.”