Who Remembers The El Pasoan Who Made It Into Nascar’s Big Leagues

I've always loved racing as a kid; growing up I grew up watching some of the greats in NASCAR: Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt, Richard Petty. I even got to see a NASCAR race in person back in November 2007 (I was at the Checker Auto Parts 500 in Phoenix). So when I discovered that someone from El Paso got to race IN NASCAR, I immediately was interested in learning more...

Jamie Dick is a proud El Paso native & a former NASCAR driver.

Jamie Dick was born in El Paso, February 5th, 1989 & would move to Albuquerque, New Mexico. He would begin his racing career at the age of 9 years old, racing go karts & would rack up several accomplishments during his career before joining the national NASCAR ranks:

• He would compete in the INEX Legends Series, where he would become the Southern New Mexico Speedway Rookie of the Year between 2000-2001.
• He would race Super Late Models & win Sandia Motor Speedway Rookie of the Year 2002-2003.
• From 2004-2009, he would compete in the
  Spears SRL Southwest Tour
  United States Late Model Association
  North State Challenge Series &
  the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series. 30 starts, 9 top 10s & 5 top 5s.

Afterwards he would begin his NASCAR career in 2007 at the age of 18, where he joined the K&N Pro Series. He only raced 5 races in 07, but the next year he would race the full season for the Viva Motorsports team (owned by his father Jimmy Dick); scoring 3 top 10 finishes. Jamie would improve in 2009, scoring 1 top 5, 4 top 10 finishes & ending up getting 10th place in the points standing. He would race only once in 2010 (focusing on his Truck career) In total, he would have 30 starts, 8 top 10s & 1 top 5 in the K&N Pro Series.

In the same year, Jamie would begin his career in the Camping World Truck Series & would race part-time seasons between 2009-2013, driving the 02 Viva Auto Group Chevrolet Silverado (He would drive the numbers 86, 07 & 08). In total he would have 13 starts with an average start of 27.1 & average finish of 23.4.

That wouldn't be the end of his career; Jamie would complete in the Nationwide Series between 2011-2015. During his time he would race a part-time season with the Viva Motorsports team, driving a few numbers: 23, 02, 52. But the one he drove the most was the black 55 Chevy Camaro.

Jamie would have only 3 starts in 2011 but the next year, he would have 14 starts, 17 starts in 2013 & 21 starts in 2014. During his time he would compete against some of the biggest names in NASCAR like Kevin Harvick, Tony Stewart, Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski & Dale Earnhardt Jr, sometimes leading the pack.

During his career, he was able to partake in many off-track events, including an event with The NASCAR Foundation, where he talked about the importance of education & its relation to his career as a race car driver & businessman.

Buzz even got to meet Jamie & see him race back in 2014 for the Nationwide O'Reilly Auto Parts 300 race at the Texas Motor Speedway (he would finish 28th).

Jamie's final NASCAR season was in 2015. It would be a short season due to medical reasons. He would return to racing a two months later even after having a scary wreck during practice in Iowa. In the end though, Jamie would only have 5 starts in 2015.

So where is Jamie now? He's still works for the Viva Auto Group (in El Paso & Albuquerque) & recently appeared on the Viva Style Podcast with Estela Casas back in January.

There WERE other people from El Paso have gone into racing like Van May & Christy Georges, the fastest woman in a Nascar (she went 208 mph at Bonneville Salt Flats). But Jamie is the one who made it into the big leagues. I hope more El Pasoans will be inspired to get into racing & hopefully make it into the big leagues like Jamie did back over a decade ago.

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