21-Year-Old Hagen Has Sights On Two USAC Titles

By Mike O’Leary
NSSN Correspondent

It’s impossible to rain on Darren Hagen’s parade. He’s at a very high level in the business of professional auto racing. Clearly there is the potential for incredible cicumstances, while at the same time, the promise of extremely high rewards. This is the level where you don’t mess around.
With the 2007 season at its midpoint, Hagen sits atop the USAC National Midget Car Series standings and is second to Levi Jones in the USAC National Sprint Car Series title hunt.
Hagen is excelling in this environment. Considering USAC’s history of great drivers, including Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon and Mario Andretti, Hagen was the first driver to win the rookie-of-the-year title in the sprint-car and midget divisions in the same year (2005). Ryan Newman and Michael Lewis have won the award in both divisions, but not in the same season.
While it seems like a couple of young racers make headlines for the wrong reasons every year, the 21-year-old Hagen is clearly from a different cloth. He’s clean cut and polite. He has no obvious tattoos or piercings. And he says things like, “Each year gets better and better. We’ve just been really blessed.”

Darren Hagen in the Keith Kunz sprinter in July (David E. Heithaus Photo)

One of the compelling components of Hagen’s racing experience is the diversity of situations in which he excels. He has won USAC races on pavement and dirt. And while he is clearly comfortable with high speeds, having turned a 146-mile-per-hour lap at Iowa Speedway in 2006, his race results show impressive consistency. Through the first 19 sprint-car races this season, he has top-five finishes in more than half.
A businessman and former motorcycle racer from Bakersfield, Calif., Hagen’s father bought a go-kart, and soon he and Darren were traveling the country, winning a ton of races. Eventually, the Hagens made the transition to the California Lightning Sprints.  Although younger than normally allowed in the mini-sprint series, Darren was allowed to race after turning laps under the track record at Perris Auto Speedway on the first night out. 
But politics prevailed when Hagen was prevented from competing further after one of the competitors complained about his age. Hagen was second in points at the time.
Hagen’s next stop was the California Ford Focus midgets when he turned 16. There the Hagens met J.J. Yeley and his father, “Cactus Jack.”  
Yeley convinced them that if Darren wanted to go anywhere, his best shot would be to move to Indiana and race three nights a week.
“He told me it was time to grow up and become a man if I really wanted to do it,” Hagen remembers. “And if I didn’t, then don’t waste my parents’s money and don’t waste people’s time. I took it to heart.”
The training began early as (Jack) Yeley took Hagen to Manzanita’s quarter-mile on really hot days and had him run lap after lap, burning off tires on the scorching hard surface. With a piece of sponge under the gas pedal, envisioning it to be an egg, he learned to control the car and be smooth under extreme conditions.
“It was kind of funny because he (Jack Yeley) joked around about how he used to make J.J. sit in the race car and just go out there and burn laps off,” Hagen recalls. “Well, when we got there, you stayed in the race car. You didn’t get a drink of water or nothing until he thought you were ready. When we’d hit a good lap, he’d give us a bottle of water. It was cool. It was fun.” 
Hagen and Cactus Jack Yeley headed to the Midwest for a summer, and he cut his sprint-car teeth on tough tracks like Bloomington Speedway, Lawrenceburg Speedway, Tri-State Speedway and Kokomo Speedway.
“Jack taught me a lot of good things,” Hagen continued. “He taught me how to get out of bed early in the morning and get out in the shop and work hard. He taught me that working hard pays off at the end of the day. Working in the shop is our work, and the only fun thing we get to do is go out and win races. That’s helped me stay focused.
“Even his wife would pound it into you to stay focused if you want it bad enough. That’s the only way you can get it. Stay focused and live it 100 percent, seven days a week. I think it’s a great way to do it.”
For 2005, Hagen took his funding to veteran USAC car builder and mechanic Keith Kunz, who fielded both sprint cars and midgets for Hagen. Hagen finished eighth in the points in both divisions. He earned his first National Sprint Car Series triumph at Perris Auto Speedway and claimed top rookie honors in both series.
“When I got to Keith Kunz, he was on with his dirt stuff, every time out,” Hagen said. “So, I stepped into a perfect race car every time and learned how to drive a perfect race car and got to learn from one of the best guys how to read dirt.”
Hagen recalls that his initial approach was to be hammer down and either win or be on the edge of out of control. 
In his first race, at Manzanita, he wanted to win so badly that he barely lifted, and by lap 22, he was in the lead and far ahead. Then he hit a lapped car that had bounced off the fence. The next race was at Eldora, and he was really fast right out of the box. He was under the track record in hot laps before destroying the car. 
At that point, Kunz sat down with him and talked about being consistent and working toward winning the championship in the next couple years. He talked about taking an eighth-place car and running fifth, about winning more races doing that because you’ll be able to take a third-place car, run up front and catch some breaks. 
Hagen has learned his lessons well.
He captured the prestigious Hut Hundred midget event at the Terre Haute Action Track last fall, complementing 2006 USAC sprint-car victories at Anderson Speedway and Lernerville Speedway. And this year, he won the King Doodlebug race at Knoxville (Iowa) Raceway, driving for Don Fike’s RFMS midget team.
Hagen’s dream has always been to reach NASCAR. He recalls sitting on the sofa with his father and watching Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon. Today, he feels like this is his best opportunity to reach that height. 
“I watched my dad work real hard at what he did,” Hagen said. “He was always preaching to us that you’ve only got one shot to make it and if you don’t make it in that one shot, you don’t get to go back in age and you don’t get to go back and redo it. So, I moved back here and I’m trying to give it my best shot.”

Darren Hagen File

Age: 21
Hometown: Riverside, Calif.
Racing Hero: Carl Edwards
Sprint Car: Keith Kunz No. 67
Midget: RFMS No. 32
Accomplishments: Six USAC victories, 2005 USAC National Midget and Sprint Car rookie of the year.