<\/p>\n
When you think of the Navy, good ol\u2019 American college football, and American stock car racing, a guy of Nigerian descent isn\u2019t exactly what comes to mind, but soon enough it will. Professional Stock car racer Jesse Iwuji has only been on the scene for a short time, but his unorthodox arrival to the world of motorsports has been nothing short of refreshing. The son of Nigerian immigrant parents, the 30-year-old race car driver is the epitome of the American dream. He\u2019s an athlete, a college graduate, a soldier, a business owner, a role model, a philanthropist, and most importantly, an all-around good guy.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Jesse Iwuji is front and center at a time when motorsports, especially NASCAR, is in need of a few feel-good stories. A splash of diversity and a real-life hero like Iwuji wouldn\u2019t be a bad addition either.<\/span>Today, most of the headlines regarding Iwuji\u2019s story may boast that the Texas native is the first active armored service member to compete in Automobile Racing Club of America Racing, a feeder series into NASCAR\u2019s Truck, Xfinity, and Cup Series; however, there is so much more to his developing storyline. After becoming aware of the Naval Academy graduate and getting to know him a bit through several chance meetings on the track, I found myself often spreading the word that Iwuji was someone to watch. After all, he\u2019s a United States Navy Reserve officer behind the wheel of a race car\u2014definitely a guy you can\u2019t help but root for.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My first impression of Iwuji was that he was way too happy. You see, Jesse has a smile that is beyond infectious and if you are lucky enough to spend time talking to him, you\u2019ll quickly realize that his optimism is contagious. I can go on and on about Iwuji\u2019s spirit and hustle, but instead, I will let his words speak for him.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n On the heels of his debut at Daytona in the ARCA Racing Series (he finished 36th) and before the start of his return to the 2018 NASCAR K&N Pro Series, I caught up with the up-and-coming…<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n [Article originally published on The Drive and written by T. Walker aka Sincerely Tam<\/a>. For the full article, please visit TheDrive.com<\/a>.]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When you think of the Navy, good ol\u2019 American college football, and American stock car racing, a guy of Nigerian descent isn\u2019t exactly what comes to mind, but soon enough it will. Professional Stock car racer Jesse Iwuji has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11136,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,208,214],"tags":[201,207,205,204],"class_list":["post-11126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-motorsports","category-pro-driver","tag-motorsports","tag-nascar","tag-racecar","tag-racing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racersandriders.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racersandriders.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racersandriders.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racersandriders.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racersandriders.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11126"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/racersandriders.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11188,"href":"https:\/\/racersandriders.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11126\/revisions\/11188"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racersandriders.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racersandriders.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racersandriders.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racersandriders.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}