While the schedule for his 14-year-old son has already been announced, Johnny Jumpthe 2016 NASCAR Truck Champion from DeForest, admits his racing plans for 2025 are up in the air.
He is ride a car for Penn, who turns 15 next week, and Penn to Participate in About a Dozen Very Late Model Special Events with the support of ThorSport, the team for which Johnny raced in the truck series for over 10 years.
He will also build one for himself.
“What that means, I don’t know,” Sauter said Friday night. “But you can’t run if you don’t have equipment available. So I can’t make a plan for myself personally, or for the NASCAR world, I have no idea what’s going on there. People usually call you two weeks before they need you, or sometimes a week before, so right now we’re just focusing on him.
The sport has changed significantly since Johnny was Penn’s age, with business acumen becoming increasingly important and technology replacing seat-of-the-pants feel and hands-on engineering. Johnny is a throwback, he freely admits, and at 46, he’s not about to change.
Or he can help Penn goes to the track and then circles it, like his late father, Jim, and brothers Jay and Tim did a generation ago.
“He loves it and he’s pretty good at it,” Sauter said. “Obviously, that’s what I grew up around: racing and working on race cars. So it’s even fun for me. So yeah, as long as he’s having a good time doing it, we’ll keep doing it.
The elder Sauter earned the duo’s first victory Friday, albeit on the ice in a one-lap tricycle relay race teamed with Josh Bilicki, at Milwaukee Admirals‘motor sports night at the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena.
Beforehand, the participating drivers spoke to journalists. Here are more highlights.
Josh Bilicki cooks up NASCAR deals and is ‘lucky to be in this job’
In addition to starting the season with the birth of his first child – expected early next month – Josh Bilicki expects his racing schedule to look a lot like it has in recent years. The 29-year-old from Richfield is in his ninth season of making deals that allow him to make a living in racing.
He will be a big part of the Xfinity Series season with DGM Coursesand some Cup Series races. And hopefully a few races with a top Xfinity or Camping World Truck Series team. And the Chili Bowl midget race next week. And a few sprint races because closer to home.
“My goal was really to race full-time in the Xfinity Series or the Truck Series, or create a really competitive opportunity with five to 10 races at (Joe) Gibbs (Racing) or a Spire Truck (Motorsports),” said Bilicki said. . “At the end of the day, it costs a lot of money. You look at a guy like Chandler Smith, who has a little bit of self-financing, and even he’s won a few races in a Gibbs car, and he’s still racing.
“You know, I unfortunately just rely on sponsor money to go racing, and I’m still very lucky to be in the position that I’m in, where I’m still able to make a career out of it, and I think It’s going to be a great year.”
Sam Mayer turns the page on the Xfinity Series
After spending nearly a third of his life with the Chevrolet and Dale Earnhardt Jr. teams, Franklin native Sam Mayer begins a new chapter in his racing career this season with Ford and Haas Factory Team in the NASCAR series Xfinity.
Mayer, 21, has won the division seven times for JR Motorsports, with the first victory coming in 2023 at Road America in Elkhart Lake.
“Chevrolet has taken care of me and done a lot of great things for me,” he said. “It’s just that everyone loves Chevrolet, and everyone has been a part of Chevrolet, and there are no seats in the Cup Series with drivers moving on to the next part of their lives.
“So Ford just came across my desk, and it was an opportunity that could lead to Cup Series opportunities and really strong racing opportunities in the future to be a Cup Series champion and the Xfinity champion Series maybe here at the end of the year.”
Haas is a revival program following the dissolution of Stewart Haas Racing when champion driver Tony Stewart left the NASCAR business. Mayer will team with Sheldon Creed in Xfinity, while Cole Custer returns to the Cup Series.
Nolan Siegel looks to build on his first full season with Arrow McLaren
A year ago Nolan Siegel thought he would run for an Indy NXT title. Twelve months later, he won the category at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and is preparing to continue his momentum. 12 NTT IndyCar Series starts in what will be his first full season.
“It’s been nice this offseason,” said Siegel, 20, who earned a multi-year agreement with Arrow McLaren last summer. “I moved to Indianapolis. I’m at the store every day. Now I know all the engineers on my car, all the mechanics. We all spend time together and it makes a difference, you know. … So I think in St. Pete we’ll be a lot better prepared than we were for any of the races last year.
IndyCar opens its season on March 2 on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida. Wisconsin dates on the calendar are June 22 at Road America in Elkhart Lake and Aug. 24 at the Milwaukee Mile.
Siegel was the third driver last season for McLaren’s No. 6 car after David Malukas was introduced as a driver but released before recovering from a pre-season cycling injury without running a race.
In 12 starts last season, Long Beach with Dale Coyne, Road America with Juncos Hollinger and 10 races with McLaren – plus a near-miss in qualifying for the Indianapolis 500 – Siegel finished seventh at World Wide Technology Raceway, l 1.25 mile oval. outside of St. Louis.
“There were a few races last year, mainly the short ovals, where we came away from the weekend feeling like we should have been on the podium,” Siegel said. “And I think capitalizing on those opportunities, when we have a strong car and a strong weekend, is the goal. I don’t want to take so many weekends away to talk about what should have been. I really want to get there.
Drag racer Chris King dreamed of taking to the ice as an admiral
Chris King dreamed that the call he received from the admirals would be for a test run, not to ride a tricycle. A native of Racine, King attended hundreds of games since he was a child, 20 to 30 times a year.
Today, he’s a Chicago firefighter trying to build a Funny Car team while still playing the game he loves.
“My whole life I’ve been like an adrenaline junkie, racing cars, motorcycles, firefighting, hockey,” King, 49, said. “And not just in regular hockey, a goalie. You must be crazy because people are shooting pucks in your face at 100 miles an hour.
When it comes to 300 mph racing, King is currently a one-man operation on the business side and works with a team of volunteers. The majority of their 2025 schedule will take place at events that are shorter trips. Yet he is a dreamer.
“I don’t know where my path will take me,” he said. “I love driving the car at the moment, but as time goes on, everyone gets older and you might have to get out of the car. And depending on where I am in life, I might be a team owner and have a driver come drive for me or just use my car to issue licenses to up and coming people.
“But there are a lot of opportunities, and as long as I can stay racing, I think I’ll be happy.”
Jordan Missig is back on the road to Indy
The road has been anything but easy for Jordan Missig, but the 26-year-old Illinois driver now finds himself one step away from IndyCar.
Missig’s stops on the Road to Indy ladder system included time with Pabst Racing Services in Oconomowoc. When funding didn’t arrive last year, he found a ride with IndyCar driver Graham Rahal’s startup Radical Cup team and won the championship. He also joined Abel Motorsports for five Indy NXT races and earned a full-time drive for 2025.
“Last year, towards the end of the season, (the goal) was to get a top 10,” Missig said. “This year my goal is to finish in the top five. Once we beat that, maybe the expectation is to get a podium, then the expectation is to get a win… Little by little, steps here and there determine the scale of progression and what , in my opinion, makes you a professional.
This article originally appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Sauter, Bilicki, Mayer, Siegel and other runners speak at Admirals game
