It’s been quite a ride for young race car driver

Published 3:43 pm Thursday, June 19, 2008

It isn’t hard to find Tayler Malsam on a racetrack: look up front where the leaders are running.

Finding him off the track is a more difficult proposition, as the 19-year-old has spent the year crisscrossing the country to race.

As a rookie in the ARCA RE/MAX series, Malsam has raced stock cars for Cunningham Motorsports in Kentucky, Iowa, Kansas, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan since beginning the season in February in Daytona, Fla.

Between his ARCA starts Malsam has raced midget cars in the Midwest or flown west to race sprint cars in California and at Grays Harbor Raceway in Elma and Skagit Speedway in Alger.

“I have no idea where he is half the time,” said Marsha Malsam, Tayler’s mother. “Until about three weeks ago he did all his own flights, hotels and everything. He can’t even rent a car because he’s not old enough.”

At least Marsha Malsam knows where her oldest child will be this weekend: racing a 410 sprint car for Rudeen Racing in the 37th annual Jim Raper Memorial Dirt Cup at Skagit Speedway in Alger.

It will be the third time competing at the Dirt Cup for Tayler Malsam, who was raised in Sammamish and recently moved to Mill Creek. He finished 13th in the C main of the 2006 edition, but advanced to the Dirt Cup A main in 2007, coming in ninth.

Although he has found success in stock cars — he is currently ninth on the ARCA RE/MAX points list and is a candidate for the series’ rookie of the year — Malsam said he welcomes the chance to race sprint cars.

“I prefer 410 sprint cars, they’re my favorite … a good race in a stock car is pretty fun,” he said. “But you can’t do a wheelie in a stock car.”

Malsam’s rise in racing has come quickly. While some of his peers began racing quarter-midgets at the age of 5, Malsam didn’t get behind the wheel of a go-kart until he was in high school.

And that came about in an unexpected way.

Although his mother said Malsam “did all the traditional sports” growing up, he was born with a muscular problem in his legs that later affected his physical development and led to arthritis in both feet.

At 15, Malsam had corrective surgery on his feet, ankles and calves. He had a cast on one leg for six months and a cast on the other leg, which was in worse shape at the time of the surgery, for eight months.

Malsam recovered from the surgery and remains physically active outside of a race car, but Marsha Malsam said her son will probably have pain in his feet for the rest of his life.

The loss of foot speed also limited his ability to be competitive in many sports.

“That was one of life’s servings there … We told him, ‘You need to find something you’re passionate about,’” Marsha Malsam said. “Within two days he was enrolled in a men’s go-karting league.”

Although there were no racers in his immediate family ­— parents Marsha and Steve Malsam; sisters Nadalie, 18, and Makenzie, 15; and brother Kollin, 11 — Tayler Malsam had a grandfather, an uncle and an aunt that raced snowmobiles.

Another uncle, Kevin Rudeen, had raced sprint cars at one time and started Rudeen Racing, later becoming Malsam’s sprint car team owner.

In his first year racing go-karts in 2005, the then-16-year-old was the only Northwest driver to qualify for the Rotax Nationals, finishing 18th out of 100 racers from around the country.

The next year Malsam moved up to racing in the open-wheel Formula TR series in California, Oregon and Arizona, and then sprint cars in California and locally at Skagit and Grays Harbor.

While taking part in his first late-model races in 2007 at Irwindale Speedway in California, Malsam ran into Bob Perona, a driving coach he knew from his Formula TR days. The two “bonded real quick,” said Malsam, who asked Perona to work with him.

Perona agreed and shortly thereafter arranged a test drive with Cunningham Motorsports, which has competed in NASCAR and ARCA since its founding in 1996.

“It was his first time in that type of stock car but he nailed it,” Marsha Malsam said of the test. “We didn’t know what to expect.”

Tayler Malsam made his ARCA debut in a Cunningham car in October 2007 at Toledo Speedway in Ohio. He finished a disappointing 33rd after starting eighth, but team managers at Cunningham saw his potential and signed Malsam to run the full 2008 ARCA schedule.

ARCA is the second largest sanctioning body for stock cars after NASCAR, and has been used by many drivers as a stepping stone into NASCAR.

Breaking into NASCAR in either the Craftsman Truck or Nationwide series is Malsam’s plan for the immediate future, with his ultimate goals being to race in the top-tier Sprint Cup series and own a World of Outlaws sprint car team.

Those plans got a boost earlier this month when Cunningham signed a developmental partnership with Penske Racing, the team that won the 2008 Daytona 500 and is owned by the legendary Roger Penske.

“It’s so new, it has been quite a ride,” Marsha Malsam said of her son’s racing career. “It’s a thrill to see your kid do something he is passionate about and enjoy.”