Day Motor Sports Driver Profile: Ryan Powers proudly winning in his own cars
KENNEDALE, Texas — All season long, we take note of and give credit to those who win races and points titles in various divisions around the Great State of Texas. Most earn wins and championships in brand new, state-of-the-art cars they purchase from popular and respected chassis builders.
Yet some guys have the ability to build their own cars (and for customers) and win races in them. For 30-year-old driver and builder Ryan Powers, the pride of winning in his own machine is huge. Powers splits his time between Factory Stock and I-Stock, and is extremely competitive in both classes.
In 42 starts this season, he’s earned five wins, 21 top-five and 29 top-10 finishes. For a guy who says he isn’t racing as often since his son (little Ryan) now races Karts, those are still impressive numbers. He won the Factory Stock portion of last week’s big Summit Showdown at Kennedale Speedway Park.
“It felt good to finally get a big feature win this year,” Powers said. “I feel like towards the middle of the season we were struggling a little. But we haven’t raced every weekend, I’ve been more focused on getting my son’s Kart racing program going this year.
“We had been sort of neglecting the Factory Stock this year, so that win was big. My Dad and I finally went over the car, fixed a few things on it, and we’ve really had it rolling the past couple of months. It’s always good to be fast this time of year for the big shows.”
Powers got an early start in racing, came up the ladder step-by-step and has 25 years of experience.
“I got started in Karts when I was only five years old,” he explained. “After I got out of Karts, we ran at Cowtown Speedway in the Junior Mini Stocks for a couple of years. We had a few wins there, then jumped up to Street Stocks and stayed there until Cowtown stopped running them.
“When they dropped that class, we moved over to Kennedale to race. We ran Stock cars for a while, then once the Factory Stock class came around, we decided to build one of those. They have a lot of big-money shows for them, which is a draw for all of us. I love racing one, and I build them, as well.”
When you look at both Factory Stock and I-Stock, the level of competition is about as high as it gets anywhere statewide around the tracks of North Texas.
“We have a lot of fast guys up here to contend with every week,” Powers said. “It’s that way in both the Factory Stock and IMCA Stock Car divisions right now. Just making it into the top five is tough, since there are probably 10 guys there capable of winning a feature. It’s stiff competition up here all year.”
As mentioned earlier, Powers makes it look easy some nights winning races in his own equipment.
“I drive two 2020 Powers cars,” said the owner of Powers Race Car Fabrication. “We mostly focus on building Factory Stock and Stock car chassis. We use the House Cars that I drive for R&D; we’ll try different things that can help develop/improve the cars we build. It’s a never-ending learning process.
“We can sell our customers a bare chassis, or a complete race-ready car, depending on what they want. We’re also a dealer for CRS Shocks; I run them on our cars and recommend them to our customers. I feel Jeffrey Abbey is among the very best, as a driver, and for top-notch shocks and setup guidance.”
Along with his immense natural talent behind the wheel and self-built, top-notch race cars, Powers has a few key people and valued sponsors in his corner who help make his program so successful.
“I have to thank JSL Woodworks and Contracting, my Dad, Joey Powers at Powers Racing Engines, who builds all of our motors; CRS Suspension, Powers Racecar Fabrication, Diamond Pools, Potter Brothers Racing and Ranch Wife Revolution. I appreciate the support and couldn’t do it without them.”
With year-long points races now concluded at most tracks around the state, Powers just has a few more chances to earn another win before 2022 fades into memory.
“We’ll be running in the 4th annual Fall Finale at Boyd Speedway this coming Saturday night,” he said. “We usually run pretty good there; we won the inaugural event and would love to win that again. We’ll take the following weekend off for my son’s Kart race, then finish our season off at Heart O’ Texas.
“After the Fall Classic at HOT, we may possibly run the last show up in Ardmore, OK, at Southern Oklahoma Speedway. We’ll see how things go at Boyd and Waco. Either way, after that we’ll start getting the cars ready for 2023. It’s been a great year, now we’ll just work to finish it off strong.”
RaceON.com Staff Writer
Photo by Mike Frieri