North Pole racers hit LV

The North Pole isn't known for producing fast drivers.

Sure, there's Santa Claus. But piloting a reindeer-powered sled falls well outside NASCAR specifications for approved race vehicles.

But a namesake for the planet's top spot and Santa's hometown is located in Alaska, where North Pole, a hamlet of about 1,000 residents, has a devoted racing family.

If commitment has anything to do with it, then Sean O'Hara, 13, might become Alaska's first NASCAR driver. Or, he says, a policeman. The latter is a more realistic perspective when you can race with tires only three months each year.

O'Hara's father, Kevin, spent three days driving his truck and trailer, hauling race cars to Las Vegas for Sean and himself. The 3,300-mile trek ending at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was for this weekend's 600 Racing Legends Cars Nationals at the three-eighths-mile Bullring.

It's unlikely that a rookie driver in the Semi Pro division such as Sean, or his father in the Masters class, will challenge for their championships tonight, but it's safe they would be favored to win the "Farthest-Traveled Award" among the 268 racers from across the country.

"It's all for the fun and getting Sean seat-time against more experienced racers," said O'Hara, a construction project manager in North Pole, which is near Fairbanks and 370 miles north of Anchorage.

O'Hara, 52, won a regional qualifying race to earn a spot in tonight's A-Main feature in Masters, which is for drivers 40 and older. But he didn't decide to head south until Sean won their state's Semi Pro title.

The three Legends categories of the five-eighths-scale replicas of American cars from the 1940s use 122-horsepower Yamaha motorcycle engines and follow the same rules. Pro and Semi Pro are for drivers 12 and older.

"It was worth the long drive down here that gets a lot longer when you head back so Sean could see how he does against the best Legends drivers in the country," O'Hara said.

Sean, however, didn't have to ride shotgun for his dad. The seventh-grader flew down with family Thursday and will miss only a couple of school days.

Sean started racing snowmobiles at age 3, but it's not freezing year-round in North Pole, so O'Hara helped formed a group to rebuild North Pole Speedway, a closed quarter-mile oval, that runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

The short season is why Sean is leaning toward a more realistic law enforcement career. To that end, his Legends Car is black and white with red and blue lights on its roof.

Championship races for all divisions will begin at 3:30 p.m. today at the Bullring. For updated results, go to LegendsNation.com.

Contact reporter Jeff Wolf at jwolf@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0247.