Sometimes one small moment changes the direction of your entire life.
For us, it began with a photograph.
The Picture That Started Everything
In February 2026, I traveled to Daytona with my mom, Tracy Larson, and my stepdad, Jerry Auby, the owners of Dells Raceway Park. I had recently stepped into the role of Director of Fan Experience at the track, and this was my first official project in that role.
While we were in the infield at Daytona International Speedway for the NASCAR Racing Experience, we stopped in front of the NASCAR logo to take a picture. I looked around for someone who could photograph the three of us and spotted a tall guy wearing a cowboy hat.
So I walked up and asked him.
After he became our impromptu photographer, I introduced myself and told him I was the Director of Fan Experience at Dells Raceway Park. As it turned out, “Cowboy Hat Evan” was a racing photographer from Rockford, Illinois, only about 30 minutes from where I was living in Wisconsin.
Of course, I shared my Instagram with him.
For networking purposes. For the racetrack.
At least, that was the story.
Cowboy Hat Evan and I never stopped talking.
Racing brought us together in February, and we were married in April. It gave us more than a shared interest. It gave us a community, a common purpose, and the beginning of a life we could build side by side.
How Dells Became My Home Track
For me, Dells Raceway Park is home, but racing was not always a major part of my life.
As a little girl growing up in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, we could hear the midget cars racing at Angell Park Speedway from our backyard. Occasionally, we would go to the track. Sometimes I watched NASCAR with my dad and, in what now feels like another lifetime, attended a few NASCAR races at Michigan International Speedway with my family.
Racing was always somewhere in the background, but it was never something that meant very much to me personally.
That began to change after my mom married Jerry. When they became the owners of Dells Raceway Park, the rest of us were more or less roped into helping. Over time, what began as pitching in wherever we were needed became something we were proud to call our family business.
Being part of Dells gave me a close-up view of everything required to create a race night. I saw how many people work behind the scenes, how much effort goes into keeping a local track running, and how deeply a racetrack can become connected to the people and communities surrounding it.
I had access to the racing world and an opportunity to contribute, but I had not yet discovered exactly where I belonged within it.
I truly began growing into my role at Dells after Evan came into my life. He brought years of racing knowledge, photography experience, practical skills, and an understanding of the sport that I did not have. Just as importantly, he believed in what I could bring to it.
With Evan beside me, I felt more confident using my own strengths to create, connect, promote, and build new experiences within the racing community.
I had access to a world I was still learning to understand. Evan had many of the skills and much of the knowledge I was missing. Together, we began discovering what we could contribute.
Dells Raceway Park became more than my family’s business. It became our home track and the place where our shared work began.
Evan’s Life in Racing
While racing gradually became part of my life, Evan grew up surrounded by it.
His dad, uncles, and grandpa all worked on race cars, so some of Evan’s earliest memories were formed around cars, racetracks, tools, crews, and the people who make racing possible. He learned the sport from the inside, not only by watching the cars on the track, but also by seeing the work required to get them there.
Most of his early racing experiences were rooted in dirt track racing. For the past ten years, however, Daytona has also been an annual family tradition. Evan and his family have returned to the Daytona 500 year after year.
That tradition ultimately placed him in the infield, wearing a cowboy hat, at precisely the moment I needed someone to take a picture.
Now our racing lives have come together at Dells Raceway Park, where we share the role of Directors of Fan Experience.
On any given race night, you might find Evan taking photographs, working security, helping solve a problem, or stepping into one of the countless jobs that keep the night moving. You might find me creating promotions, connecting with fans, developing new experiences, or selling drinks at the Last Lap Saloon.
Occasionally, if we are lucky, I get to sneak away long enough for us to stand together and watch a few laps.
Those small moments remind us why we are here.
Remembering Why We Race
As we spent more time getting to know the drivers, teams, families, and people behind Dells Raceway Park, we began to recognize how much good was happening throughout the racing community.
We also realized that many of those stories were not receiving enough attention.
Racing naturally focuses on results: who qualified fastest, who won the feature, who gained points, and who crossed the finish line first. Competition is part of what makes the sport exciting, but it is not the whole story.
Behind every car is a network of people giving their time, talent, money, and energy. There are drivers making time for young fans, teams supporting local causes, volunteers showing up every week, families carrying traditions forward, photographers preserving memories, sponsors investing in their communities, and track employees doing work most people will never see.
Those stories matter.
We also began talking about something else we had noticed. Sometimes people in racing seem to forget why they entered the sport in the first place.
Racing asks a lot out of people. The competition, costs, sponsorship commitments, long hours, hard work, setbacks, and pressure to perform can slowly overshadow the joy that started it all.
At some point, some people may have simply forgotten that they got into racing to have fun.
Go fast.Have fun.
The phrase is lighthearted, but the idea behind it matters. Racing should challenge us, but it should also bring us joy. It should give us stories to tell, people to cheer for, friendships to value, and reasons to come together.
Eventually, the message became something larger:
Go fast.Have fun.Build community.
How The Home Track Initiative Began
Some of our best conversations happen when we begin connecting ideas that might not seem related at first.
Evan and I talk about biology and neuroscience. We talk about history and books we’ve read. We talk about photography and storytelling and our dream of traveling the country in an RV with our dogs. We talk about faith, positivity, human biology and behavior, and what helps people understand one another.
Most of all, we talk about how we can use the things we know and love to bring more good into the world.
The Home Track Initiative grew out of those conversations and our shared passion for creating positivity through understanding.
We created it to celebrate the good already happening within grassroots racing and to encourage even more of it. We want to tell the stories of drivers, teams, tracks, crew members, officials, volunteers, fans, photographers, families, businesses, and community partners who are making a difference.
We also want to inspire more people in racing to consider what they can do for the communities that support them.
That could mean volunteering, supporting a local cause, welcoming a new fan, mentoring a young driver, recognizing an overlooked crew member, sharing someone else’s accomplishment, or simply remembering that community matters more than competition.
No gesture is too small to make a difference.
What We Look For
The Home Track Initiative is not focused only on the drivers who are winning races or qualifying the fastest. Those statistics are part of competition, but they are not what determines whether someone represents this initiative.
We are looking for drivers and teams who show up for their communities, support the people around them, welcome new fans, encourage young racers, respect their competitors, and use their platform to make a positive difference.
We want to recognize the people who understand that grassroots racing is about more than results. It is about family, friendship, teamwork, perseverance, sportsmanship, and the communities that make racing possible.
As The Home Track Initiative grows, we hope to become a nonprofit organization that reinvests everything back into the project and the racing communities we serve. Revenue from merchandise, partnerships, raffles, giveaways, and other fundraising efforts would help us support drivers, teams, local tracks, and community programs.
Our goal is to create partnerships with people who genuinely live the mission of The Home Track Initiative. Someday, we would love to see our decal on cars at tracks across the country as a badge of honor, representing community involvement, positivity, integrity, and a commitment to helping grassroots racing grow stronger.
Our Home Track and Yours
Dells Raceway Park is where The Home Track Initiative begins because Dells is our home track.
It is part of my family’s story, the place where Evan and I discovered how our different strengths complement one another, and the community where our shared work took shape.
But this initiative was never meant to belong to only one track.
