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From now until November, Austin Joplin will spend a lot of time with a helmet on as he plays football for Willard High School.
“Football, I really, really love. Especially for the team aspect of it, I love it, I love all the guys on the team,” Austin said.
This school year he’ll go right from football to wrestling and eventually track and field, but he’ll tell you it’s a different track and a different helmet he loves most.
“I’d have to start with racing,” Austin said. “Racing is my number one passion.”
Perhaps the only one who loves Austin’s racing more, is his one-man pit crew.
“I think I get more out of it, you know I could be wrong. But as the dad, of course I think I’m getting more out of it,” said Austin’s dad, Mike Joplin.
“As great as the success is and the super fun times are, they would mean so much less without the people that make it possible and the people that I really care about like my dad,” Austin said.
So this one man pit crew and driver combo make a two-man team.
That means Austin and Mike spend a lot of time inside the family garage.
Fixing, tinkering, and getting Austin’s car ready to race.
“We’re a low budget operation, we’re doing it for fun,” Mike said.
The real fun starts when Austin squeezes into his ride to race.
“After a tough football workout, it takes me a minute to get through the window,” Austin said.
Once he does, he sits alone in the car, but not alone in spirit.
“That’s grandpa’s name, it’s pretty nice to have him on there with me,” Austin said.
“He’s riding shotgun with him the whole time,” Mike added.
Mickey Joplin, Mike’s dad, joins Austin every race on a nameplate on the passenger side of the car.
“He always wanted to see Austin in a racecar, because he watched him race go-karts and before he passed away he said ‘you have to get that kid in a car’,” Mike said.
So Mickey left Mike some money to buy Austin a race car.
“That’s exactly what I did,” Mike said. “And that’s the same car we’re still using.”
The same car in which Mickey rides shotgun, while Mike watches trackside just as his dad did with him.
“He [Mickey] was at every single race that I ever ran, the whole time I was racing. Likewise with this kid, I haven’t missed one and don’t plan on it,” Mike said.
And who could blame him.
Just like every lap, the memories comes full circle; grandfather to father and father to son.
