A bad start to the season didn’t stop Darren Robertson from winning his second straight Super Late Model championship at Colorado National Speedway last year.
Now, the veteran driver is looking to do what no one has done at the Dacono, Colorado track since it was paved in 1989 – win three straight track titles.
Robertson describes his team’s track title last year at Colorado National – a 0.375-mile asphalt oval near Denver – as “lucky.” The first two races of 2018 did not get the team off to a championship start.
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“After 2017 we built a new car. We sold our old car that we won a championship with, so we started last year off with a brand new car and we didn’t have it ready for the first race of the season,” Robertson said. “So we borrowed a car from a good friend of ours and a customer of ours. And we were running third and blew a radiator hose and ended up finishing 19th in the first race with that car.
“The second race of the season we missed completely and we didn’t even think we had a shot at the championship. And once we got our car out there and going we were fortunate enough to run good every week.”
Coming from behind is nothing new for a lifelong racer like Robertson. He grew up watching his dad, Jerry Robertson, race on dirt before moving over the Colorado National when the track switched to asphalt. Darren Robertson said it was only natural that he would also race himself. He never even considered anything else growing up.
“Growing up I always wanted to race so I kind of just knew when the time was right I would start racing,” he said.
It was 2004 when he started racing a modified at Colorado National, winning one main event and finished second overall in the points on the way to a rookie of the year title.
A year later, Robertson’s dad started Furniture Row Racing with Barney Visser. That same year, Robertson started driving his dad’s Super Late Model, winning a second rookie of the year title.
Robertson worked for Furniture Row for about three years before moving to North Carolina to work for Kevin Harvick’s KHI team. He moved back to Colorado after the team shut down, continuing to work in racing with his dad for a business they now run that works on and builds race cars and shocks and maintains short track cars.
Being in the business of race cars has made Robertson more successful with his own.
“It helps when you’re working on them everyday and we’re in the loop of technology being in the business,” Robertson said. “That helps for sure rather than somebody that had a normal daily job and then they do the racing after work on the side. So for sure that helps with being on top of the technical side of it. And also fabricating-wise and building stuff, that gives you a lot of experience. You’re able to get better and better at it everyday.”
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Robertson returns to his home track looking to make history this season, but he admits it won’t be easy, with a lot of cars there he expects to run consistently well and really challenge him.
After traveling across the country to race though, for him there are not many places that stack up to Colorado National.
“There’s a lot of good cars, there a lot of talent out at Colorado National and I think it’s because there’s not a lot of NASCAR local tracks around here so all the talent goes to one track in the better part of the region here,” he said. “The first thing I noticed going to those other racetracks was the fan count wasn’t nearly what we have out here at Colorado National. They do a really good job of packing the stands out here and getting a good fan base.
“So I feel really fortunate to be part of a track that can get the fans out there like that. It makes the racers have something more to race for when they see the grandstands are packed full.”
Colorado National Speedway will open the season this Saturday with the Sunoco Race Fuels High Octane Icebreaker featuring Super Late Models, Modifieds and Super Stocks beginning at 5:30 p.m.
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