DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – His mom is a former Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Champion, his older brother is the youngest class winner in GT3 Cup Challenge history, and now, McKay Snow is earning his time in the spotlight.
No pressure, right?
Snow is the son of Martin and Melanie Snow, who both raced in the IMSA GT3 Cup Challenge series in the 1990s. His older brother, Madison, followed in his parent’s footsteps and at the age of 17, made history by winning the 2013 GT3 Cup Challenge Platinum Cup Championship, the youngest champion since the series inception in 2005.
The 19-year-old McKay joined his race champion family and started racing go-karts when he was 5 years old in Lehigh, Utah.
“I grew up racing at Miller Motorsports Park, which is now the Utah Motorsports Campus,” Snow said. “It’s a great track to practice on and my entire family has a lot of experience out there.”
When he turned 14, Snow turned to national races, including a few National Auto Sport Association championships and a brief stint in what was then called IMSA Prototype Lites in 2015.
Now, Snow is racing for Wright Motorsports, a premier Porsche race team that specializes in driver development, in the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge USA by Yokohama Platinum Cup Championship.
“Johnny Wright is a good family friend and he used to run both my parents, plus my brother,” Snow said. “He’s one of the best Porsche engineers I’ve ever experienced. The Wright Motorsports team keeps the cars running and going quick.”
“McKay started off this season conservatively,” said Bob Viglione, technical director at Wright Motorsports. “We just wanted to ‘survive’ at Sebring earlier this year. He did so with two solid top-five finishes. He has shown good speed at the last few events during practice, but we just haven’t put it all together and haven’t qualified as well as we need to, yet.”
Snow’s Wright Motorsports teammates, Andrew Longe, Anthony Imperato and Phillip Bloom, are all racing in the Platinum class alongside Snow.
“It really is a team effort,” Snow said. “We test together a lot and it’s an invaluable tool to get quicker with your teammates. We get competitive with each other. For example, our engineer offers prizes for quickest lap time. But in the end, we try not to get too much in each other’s way. They’re all good teammates.”
The young driver’s goals for the season consist of getting a pole position and winning a race. Wright Motorsports and Snow are also hoping for a top-three finish in the Championship.
“Last year, my goal was to figure out these cars and finish in the top 10, this year, I would love to place somewhere in the top three,” Snow said.
“I love the car’s paddle shift system, that makes me focus on every little bit of the car,” he added. “It’s really reliable and we can just focus on the speed aspect. Compared to a Lites car, which is downforce driven, it took me awhile to adapt to the two cars, but Porsches are so reliable.”
Snow is also balancing his racing career with his college career. He attends the University of Colorado Boulder where he is studying to become a mechanical engineer.
“It’s pretty busy trying to get between there and the racetrack but my school works with me if I have to skip certain classes for races,” Snow said. “I decided to go into this field because I already know so much about it from my racing career.
“My parents always wanted us to race,” he continued. “They’re big racers, but they’re also fans, they love watching. My mom is competitive and she loves talking to everyone in the pits on race weekends.
“Our entire family races, except for my two little sisters,” Snow mentioned. “I’m trying to get them to join the family sport!”
Source : speedsport.com
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