Pro Racer At 17

Manhasset High School junior Ben Auriemma is on a fast track to achieving his goal of becoming a professional race car driver.
Over the past year, the 16-year-old has competed successfully on the winter and summer racing series of the national Skip Barber Racing School circuit and finished third and second, respectively, in those two series.
“I’ve always said I wanted to be a race car driver. But now moving into cars it’s become a reality.”Auriemma said. “I’ve been in love with it since I was 10. I’ve been getting a lot more serious since then.”
He made a major transition this year from racing in go-karts to open cockpit formula 1 type cars, taking a three-day course at the Skip Barber school to prepare for his first 50-mile race in a field of 10 drivers on a track in California.
From the karts  – 300 pound vehicles powered by 25 horsepower engines –  he had now moved into a field of 1,100-pound cars with 200 horsepower engines moving at 120 miles per hour.
“Moving into cars, something just clicked,” Auriemma said.
His father, Michael, who owns a management consulting firm in Manhattan, was his first mentor when Ben was driving karts. Ben followed his father’s lead, after accompanying him at races on the same circuit he competed on this year.
His father, who started racing in the Skip Barber series in his late 30s, sees prospects for a racing career in his son’s accomplishments.
“He’s progressing a lot more quickly and having a lot more possibilities than me,” the elder Auriemma said.
Auriemma, who’s also driven on the international sports car circuit, faced off against his son in four sports car races this year. They each won two races and still debate who’s the better driver.
From the first time he got in the cockpit in the six-race Skip Barber winter series last January, Ben excelled.
“I was leading for the first couple of races and made some mistakes and had bad luck,” he recalled.
In his first race of the eight-race summer series in Florida, he came from sixth position to win the race.
Apart from experiencing the sheer speed, it’s the action on the track that he thoroughly enjoys.
“The main thing is the competition and how close it is and how perfect you have to be at everything in the car,” he said.
A minor misjudgment can send a car careening into a wall, which happened to him once in training this season, without sustaining injury.
“I didn’t hit the wall too hard,” he said, adding, “In cars, it’s really expensive to crash.”
Costs of his racing this year were in the six figures, according to his father, whose business contacts have helped raise sponsorship money.
“It’s really expensive and it gets more expensive at each step,” the younger Auriemma said. “I have relationships with people at senior levels of major companies through my dad’s business.”
His performance in the Skip Barber races enabled Ben to win a spot on Tudor United SportsCar team owner Michael Shank’s squad as a junior development driver. His relationship with Shank Racing driver Ozz Negri, who coached the younger driver in his karting career, also enabled the Shank team connection.
Next year he’ll move up to larger, faster cars, driving at 140 mph in the Mazda Road to Indy series. He can still receive private funding and aims to win prize money in the Mazda-sponsored series, as he did this year, to help sustain his efforts.
Beyond that, he’ll be reliant on sponsorships to advance toward his goal of hitting the pro sports racing circuit in a few years.
“I’m still looking at colleges kind of as a plan B,” Ben said. “You can always go back to college, but you can never go back to racing.”
With a 3.9 grade point average, he excels in math and science and particularly enjoys the technical analysis of racing. He also follows a strict regimen of physical training for the stamina and balance he needs on the track.
“There’s so much to it. You don’t just show up at the track and drive,” he said.