Ramstrom to Run NASCAR Pro East Series in 2010
W. Boylston, MA — Eighteen year-old Derek Ramstrom, a graduate of the PASS North Series and a Thompson International Speedway weekly Super Late Model racer, will run for rookie of the year honors in the NASCAR Pro Series East for NDS Motorsport’s Waste Management Recycling team’s #35 car this season.
“It’s just amazing,” said Ramstrom, who was the youngest track champion in Thompson International Speedway history , in 2009, winning four races en route to the Super Late Model title. “I really couldn’t ask for a better opportunity than this, NDS Motorsports has fielded competitive cars in the series for many years.” The experience acquired by his time racing at Thompson, which is described by Derek as the largest and fastest short track in New England, has-in his opinion-prepared him to move up to the Pro Series of NASCAR.
Despite his relative youth, Derek notes that he will not be the youngest driver in the Pro Series in the coming season. For instance, 2009 Champion Ryan Truex is only seventeen. Winning the first Pass Late Model Outlaw series championship in 2005 at the age of thirteen, Ramstrom now enters a series that abounds in quality teams supporting some of the most promising young drivers in the nation.
Ramstrom, at the age of eighteen, already has enjoyed an experience as long as many drivers have in an entire career. He started racing quarter midgets at the age of six and then Allison Legacy cars before moving up to late models at the age of 13. He will find himself competing at more tracks, and he will be running at larger tracks than before. He will be logging many more miles in his new series, as well. Young Derek will have raced this year in nine states Iowa, Georgia, Arizona, California, Virginia, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Delaware.
Derek still plans to race as many as twelve weekly Super Late Model races at Thompson and around six PASS races this year. His racing horizons will have broadened considerably by the time this promising youngster is graduated from West Boylston High School in June.
Ramstrom’s first race of the new season is the Pro Series East opener at Greenville-Pickens Speedway in Greenville, S.C., on March 27.
Sources: Rick Ramstrom/Derek Ramstrom PR