Since age 7 Texas Nation console raced with
whichever EA title was out in the current year. But in the
summer of 2008 at age 17, when Texas finally bought his Xbox 360
and Nascar 09 title he had wanted for months, the sim-racing age
of reason set in and he quickly realized that his gaming
experience could be a lot more enjoyable. He quickly put his
Xbox and final EA title he would ever buy on Craigslist. After
it sold, he got his MOMO wheel and the game that he had heard
would never become obsolete, Nascar Racing 2003 Season.
He joined his first league, ORCA Racing, in
July 2008 and began running in their Rookie Series. He chose to
run number 02 as it was the first number he ever saw his
favorite driver Ryan Newman run. In just his third online start
he got his first victory at Michigan and quickly was promoted to
ORCA's very difficult Cup Series. Texas racked up 6 wins and 9
poles in 16 starts in the Rookie Series, and 3 top 10's in 8
starts in the Cup Series. This quick luck boosted Nation's
racing ego immensely, however after the 2008 season ORCA racing
shut it's doors and Nation began his search for another league.
From the suggestion of a fellow ORCA
member, Texas found FSB Racing and quickly knew that was where
he wanted to race. Nightly racing instead of weekly and
significantly larger fields were something very new to Nation.
In his one month tryout Texas success in the past got to him, he
went all out in almost every race he started thinking he would
find the same success. That was not to be however as it seemed
every Top 10 he got he also wrecked or caused a wreck. Nation
almost did not pass his tryout month, but thanks to the
generosity of Jim Ray at FSB, Texas was the first member of
FSB's Rookie division. As 2008 drew to a close Texas crunched
the races in to try to learn how to race clean but competitive.
The 2009 season started a bit rough for
Texas, his past aggressiveness seemed to not yet be tamed in the
first Rookie race of the season at Daytona when he caused a
large wreck by bump drafting in the tri-oval. The next week was
a different story however as at Chicagoland in Rookie Cup, Texas
ran a perfectly clean race on the way to his first points
victory at FSB. The Spring 2009 Season would be very successful
to Nation, with 48 total starts, he had an average finish of
7.21, a rank of 10th out of 51 FSB drivers. Texas had 10 total
wins, with 6 in the Rookie Cup series, 2 in Rookie Trucks, 1
Sportsman Truck and 1 Sportsman Cup victory. He finished with
10 poles, 25 Top 5's and 31 Top 10's. An extremely successful 20
weeks, when asked about his favorite time of the Spring 2009
season Texas pointed out two events, a weekend in March in which
he won three of four races he competed in at Martinsville. And
the late season charge he attempted to put on Roy Cutshaw for
the Rookie Cup Championship where after missing two races midway
through the season, Texas closed Roy's point lead to 28, only to
have an engine failure at Lowe's in the last race of the
season.
Texas loves that he can connect and notice similarities
between sim-racing and actual NASCAR, as an extreme NASCAR fan,
he finds it amazing to get an idea of how actual drivers must
approach races. Racing like his favorite driver Ryan Newman
sometimes pays off for him and sometimes doesn't, nonetheless
Texas has found a hobby he thoroughly enjoys in sim-racing and
he looks forward to doing it for many years to come.
As for his non-racing life Texas is 18
years old and lives in West Columbia, SC. NASCAR and his
girlfriend seem to be the only things keeping him sane. Fresh
out of high school Texas is putting off college for a while to
focus on a double-lung transplant that he needs, with a
significant insurance hang-up, funds for the transplant being
raised are his main focus at the moment. But through it all he
is still having a fun time with his lady, his racing, and by
just plain being goofy.
