Scott Bloomquist

He traded his 1957 Chevy for a truck and race hauler.

After arriving in Tennessee, he tore up the car in qualifying at Newport Speedway.

He worked for his father until he had enough money to repair the car.

He won some races, earning just enough money to continue racing.

The next year he decided to race with a new car at Kingsport, Tennessee Speedway, which had begun hosting a $2,500-to-win event every Saturday night.

"I come rolling into the race with my dad and there sits Larry Moore," Bloomquist said.

"He was the fastest guy in dirt late model racing and there he sits. And my dad says, `Well, there goes that $2,500.'" Bloomquist qualified second fastest behind Moore and started out on Moore's outside in the first row.

Bloomquist said, "Moore took the lead but was holding me up, so I knocked him out of the way and won. That's $2,500. Next week, I'm on the pole, Moore's outside and I won again. Now I'm sitting here with five grand and I'm thinking that things are starting to look up."

Bloomquist used the winnings to improve his race car.

He continued working at his father's farm to pay off his original race car.

He began going to races with $2,000 purses that were 100 mi from his house.

Scott Bloomquist (born November 14, 1963) is a nationally touring Dirt Super Late Model race car driver in the United States.

Bloomquist was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa.

Bloomquist's first race was at Corona Raceway in Corona, California in August 1980.

He won several races and the track championship in 1982.

He saw a picture of a flat-wedge-shaped race car that Charlie Swartz had used to win the Dirt Track World Championship in 1982, and he decided to build a race car like it for the Chula Vista race.

Bloomquist won the race, lapping the field twice in the process.

After the race, his father wanted to sell the car since it was worth a lot of money.

The two reached an agreement where the father would gradually be paid for the car if the newly graduated Scott Bloomquist would work at his father's new farm far across the country in Tennessee.

In 1983 he heard about a $4,000-to-win race at the speedway in Chula Vista, California.

In 1988 he raced at Eldora Speedway's World 100 against the three-time winner and favorite Jeff Purvis.

After qualifying for the feature, which is unusual for a rookie, he started seventh.

Purvis took the lead early in the race.

Bloomquist slowly caught Purvis and passed him for the win.

Some people consider his win a fluke until Bloomquist took the pole position the following year and won the race again in 1990.

He raced in the Hav-A-Tampa series from 1993 to 1996, winning the national touring series in 1994 and 1995.

He led the 1996 points until he lost all of his points for bumping another car under caution.

He had 60 wins in the series during that time, second place had 18 wins.

With problems both on and off-track, he left racing and started reading.

He read about the human body and mind.

After he returned to racing a changed person.

He took all of his sponsors off the car and used only black and white paint.

He changed from his familiar number 18 to number 0.

He put the yin yang symbol in the middle of the "0" to represent the balance that he found in his life.

He was inducted in the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame in its second class in 2002 and currently is the owner of Dirt Late Model chassis manufacturer Team Zero Race Cars.

Considered by most as the greatest dirt super late model driver of all time.

Bloomquist is the son of an airplane pilot for Air Cal.

While stationed in California, Bloomquist's father was invited to see his coworker race a stock car.

The elder Bloomquist thought he should give racing a try, so bought a race car, motor, and some old tires.

He tried racing, and decided to give the race car to his son.