At 15, Rising Fast on Virginia Raceways
Potomac High Sophomore Speeds From Go-Karts to Mini Hot Rods

By Nick Miroff
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 28, 2006

PlayStations, video iPods, camera phones -- Santa can keep 'em. What budding race car driver Dave Daniels really wanted for Christmas was a HANS device.

"H-A-N-S," said Dave, 15, seated at the kitchen table in his family's Woodbridge home. "It's an expensive piece of equipment, but it'll save your life." Molded from high-tech carbon fiber, a HANS (head and neck support) device is essentially a seat belt for the head, Dave explained, protecting a driver's neck from a fatal case of whiplash in a high-speed crash. The cost?

"It's about $1,000," he said.

Dave's mother, Janie Daniels, was listening from the living room. "You can't put a price tag on safety," she said.

So as gift requests go, the HANS was a good bet. After all, Mom and Dad are unlikely to skimp on safety these days, because in April, Dave -- who is not yet eligible for a Virginia driver's license -- will start whipping around the track at Manassas's Old Dominion Speedway pushing 90 mph.

Santa came through with the HANS.

The Potomac High School sophomore has had a distinguished, if brief, racing career. Over the past two years, he has won 33 of 49 kart-racing contests, dusting other adolescents in a souped-up red go-kart that looks like a Pixar creation, sans the talking grille and bulging eyes.

But now that Dave is 15 and old enough to shave, he's moving on to Legends Cars, miniaturized rocket-boxes modeled after classic vehicles such as a 1934 Ford hot rod. Dave's has a distinctly modern Yamaha motorcycle engine. On a straightaway, it'll do 130.

Whoa, not so fast, say Dave's parents, who aren't handing over the keys to the $17,000 machine that easily. For one, Dave must complete 1,000 laps in his blue No. 52 Legends Car before he can compete (he's up to 440). More importantly, his grades can't come in second to the speedway.

"There are a lot of stipulations," Janie Daniels said. "He has to maintain good grades, do his chores."

At school, Dave said he doesn't talk much about racing or boast to other kids who have never felt the G-forces. For the most part, they don't understand the sport, he said. "They have this stereotype that it's a redneck thing," he said. "But you have to be an intellectual. You have to know what you're doing."

"If he gets two C's, we don't race," said his father and crew chief, Mike Daniels, owner of Daniels Auto Care in Dumfries. "It's a tool for us. This is the carrot to keep him out of trouble."

Not that Dave is the at-risk type. His report card -- a stack of A's with a couple of scattered B's -- gets trophy-level treatment from his parents. His room is tidy, his manners impeccable. Racing has sparked a deeper interest in math, science and engineering.

Janie Daniels called it "the whole package."

If he wants to be a professional speedster, said his mother, "he has to sell himself, to market himself. Years ago, drivers just raced. Now you have to be well-spoken and have charisma."

Grooming the young racer is a full-time family affair. Mike Daniels recently expanded the garage to accommodate his son's Legends Car and bought one for himself to help Dave train. Janie Daniels, who does part-time Web design, serves as Dave's marketing consultant. She built his Web site, http://www.dancoracing.com, and helped him launch a letter-writing campaign to obtain sponsorship for Danco Racing before the spring.

Dave has attracted a few fans. Patty Pool, the owner of King George Speedway, said the teenager is a "super-duper racer" with the potential to succeed at the sport's highest levels. "He drives smoothly without causing wrecks," she said. "And he's very pleasant. Not a fly-off-the-handle-type person."

After worrying over her husband's penchant for racing Camaros at Old Dominion Speedway years ago, Janie Daniels said she didn't want her son to race. But she "couldn't hold him back."

"He's got to live out his dream," she said. "I'm a nervous wreck, but I trust him and I trust his father to keep him safe. I saw it was helping create a relationship between father and son."

His mother's only complaint? "He's not scared of speed," she said. "That's what bothers me."