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Local sprintcar driver near front of U.S. pack

Invaders from the north are in the running for a U.S. national championship.
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Jason Conn, left, and his crew of Ginny Grimshaw, Richie Larson, Aaron Conn and Robin Case stand in front of Conn's sprintcar, which can reach speeds of 165 miles per hour. Conn drives in the U.S.-based King of the Wing National Sprintcar Series and is in the running for the season championship.

Invaders from the north are in the running for a U.S. national championship.

Driver Jason Conn and his crew of Richie Larson, brother Aaron Conn, girlfriend Ginny Grimshaw and Robin Case hold third spot in the King of the Wing National Sprintcar Series, which wraps up with Saturday and Sunday races in California. If Conn has a great weekend behind the wheel, he has a chance to pass the two men ahead of him on the points list - Quesnel's Ron Larson, and Davey Hamilton Jr., who is the son of series founder Davey Hamilton. Conn (510 points) is 15 behind Larson and 39 back of Hamilton Jr.

Conn, 31, would like nothing better than to see his name at the top of the standings by Sunday night.

"That's the plan, for sure," he said. "Obviously we have some of the stiffest asphalt sprintcar competition in the world but we've got our cars prepped and we're ready to go give it our all.

"(Winning the championship) is very realistic," he added. "We've always been right there, very close for speed (with Hamilton Jr.) so I don't think it's out of reach."

Conn is a rookie driver in King of the Wing, while Quesnel's Larson has several years of experience on the series, which holds events from coast to coast in the U.S. So far this season, races have been held in Florida, Alabama, Ohio, Virginia, Indiana, Idaho and Washington state. The final two - the ones that will decide the championship - are Saturday in Stockton and Sunday in Bakersfield.

Originally, Conn was planning to run in a western-based sprintcar loop but then decided to "go headfirst and run the national series." As a newcomer to King of the Wing, he has far surpassed the goals set by the team for the inaugural season.

"We're pretty surprised," he said. "It was going to be basically a 'get your feet wet' and 'respect' kind of year and I think we've gained both of those."

Conn and company drive the highways, pulling a trailer behind them, to get to the races. The longest trip - to Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Fla., - took about 50 hours. For understandable reasons, the team has two race cars.

"We always pack a backup car," Conn said. "Traveling these distances, you're going to race - you don't want to load a car up and not race when you're all the way over in Florida or something."

On the bigger tracks, Conn and the quicker drivers reach speeds of 165 miles per hour. At the smaller venues, race leaders will often run full-out at 120 miles per hour. At those velocities, small mistakes can easily turn into major disasters or, at the very least, a sudden end to a race day.

"Consistency is the main thing," Conn said of the key factor in his stellar season. "These are very fine-line race cars. You're running them on such a ragged edge. You have to finish races and finish at the top.

"You're basically a 900-horsepower car that, with the driver in it, weighs 1,500 pounds," he added. "(The car is) direct drive and you have a huge top wing that creates mega downforce. You have sticky tires that last one race, and the cars run on methanol. They're basically nasty beasts."

Conn, an avid and talented go-kart racer in his younger years, has a hard time describing the feeling of ripping around a track in one of his sprintcars.

"They're just an extreme car," he said. "You sit in them so much different than a regular race car. You're sitting upright, you have a driveline that goes through your legs - like I said, direct drive, so basically in gear, out of gear. So there's very minimal horsepower loss."

The price for a new sprintcar ranges from $60,000 to $80,000. On top of that, there are the travel costs and the inevitable repair bills. Many teams on the King of the Wing series have long lists of corporate sponsors to help soften the financial blow but, remarkably, Conn has no major backer.

"We're just doing it on our own, just out of a love for the sport, I guess," said Conn, who does have a deal with locally-owned Williams Signs and Graphics for the lettering on the cars and gets some assistance from Tri-Par RV Rentals. "We are running against some people in the field that do this for a living and have a race shop and employees and that kind of thing. So to work a 50-, 60-hour work week and then work on the race cars and drive for days and days and days, to actually be competitive is a pretty good achievement."

Conn owns a local business, ConnCore Towing, and that's how he pays the racing bills. He has also earned $8,250 in prize money so far this season.

The expense of his sport is just something Conn accepts.

"It is what it is," he said. "You've got to have hobbies. It doesn't take much to spend $25,000 a year to go snowmobiling this day and age. So you have your selected hobbies, and this is what we do."