Blake Fields (left), the 14-year-old son of Chad and Debbie Upton of Bowling Green, leads the pack during warm-ups at Beech Bend Raceway Park Tuesday night preceding the weekly night of racing in Bowling Green. Photo by Clinton Lewis

It appears the faces of auto racing are getting younger and younger with the likes of Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, Matt Kenseth and even Dale Earnhardt Jr., but they all had to start somewhere. That somewhere could have been a short track like Beech Bend Raceway Park, where young men with the same dreams are working toward a career in racing. Blake Fields is just one of 2000s young guns at Beech Bend, but despite the ability he shows on the track he is too young to drive a car. It stinks not being able to get a drivers license, said the 14-year old Fields, who has won two races in the Front Runner Division since he began driving in mid-July. It is fun to compete here but here it is all go fast and turn left. Fields might make it look that easy while on the track but his grandfather, Bill Fields, looks at it differently. He was born with a God-given gift to drive, the elder Fields said. It is what he wanted to do and all he has ever wanted to do. It is what he lives for. He even went out and bought the car that he drives in his class from Barry Brooks. I wanted to race and took the money I had saved from mowing yards and purchased it for $200, said Blake, who is a freshman at Greenwood High School. Now since I have been racing I have paid for my car and made just a little. Fields is ninth in the points standings with 442 points behind James Phelps at 460, but he proves to be a threat to move up. Two other drivers who continue to show their skills in the super street division were last Tuesdays winner 17-year-old Jamie Summers, of Franklin, and 18-year old Eric Coomes who is currently sixth in his division points. Coomes wants to excel at racing so badly that he has already worked as a crew member on Jimmy Gross Goodys Dash Series car the summer after his junior year and this coming spring he will attend Rowan-Caberras Community College in North Carolina to study auto racing. He will be studying such items as tire fundamentals, drive trains and motor sports marketing while working toward his degree. I didnt think I was going anywhere in life until my mom (Sharon) found a Web site about the college, said Coomes, who graduated this past May from Warren Central High School and is going this fall to Western Kentucky University to get some of his core classes out of the way. My parents have been a great help and are 100 percent behind me when I started in go karts which pushed me on to where I am today. Now you cross your fingers and hope you get the right break as it is who you know that gives you the chance to make it in racing with all the great drivers out here. Following in racing footsteps is Summers, but instead of a quick shot down the quarter-mile like his drag racing father (Gary), he enjoys the oval tracks. I got started in this by helping my brother-in-law (Billy Baughn) and my dad with his dragster, said Summers, who is a junior at Franklin-Simpson High School. I have been doing pretty good at late, but the biggest thrill was getting my first win. The car had been fast all night and I figured I had the chance to win, but I kept my fingers crossed while leading and heard every little noise the car made. Summers has been racing for just over a month at Beech Bend and Highland Rim Raceway in Ridge Top, Tenn., where he has been fast qualifier for the past two weeks. But behind the scenes are parents who watch with white knuckles as they urge their child on. Sharon Coomes knows racing makes her son happy, while making her slightly nervous. I knew he wanted to do this since it is all he has lived and talked about since he was three year old, Coomes said. It has just been a natural progression. Eric would only be happy around motor sports, if it was driving or working, and we have been supportive of that. What makes me happy as a parent is when he comes off the track with a smile on his face no matter where he finishes. Sharon Coomes might have taken her son driving a race car a little easier, but he has a drivers license. For Chad and Debbie Upton they didnt know their son Blake could even drive a car. I was scared about it at first, Debbie Upton said. I had let him drive my car out in the country once, but it was until I could see that he could drive and pay attention did I relax some. What makes me just as proud is that he pays his way in and for it all, this is his car and dream. But the racing isnt new for Chad Upton as he raced four wheelers nationally, which got Blake into racing at a very young age. Now Blake and his success has gotten Chad interested in racing again with place for a sportsman division car next season.