NEWMANSTOWN, Pa. — Working to the tune of an obscure but spirited hip-hop song from his favorite playlist, T-Pain Radio on Pandora, Tanner Thorson reverted to his typical headspace prior to the USAC National Midget Series show Saturday night at Lanco’s Clyde Martin Memorial Speedway.
Having bounced around practically every corner of the motorsports world over the last few years, Thorson is back to how he likes it at Reinbold-Underwood Motorsports — free-flowing with the autonomy to set up his race car and work environment to his liking.
“It’s always bumping around here,” said Thorson, sporting a black ball cap with “FREE MAN” in white stitching to underline his tone.
Beneath the fearless appearance often mistaken for cockiness, ‘Lions Not Sheep’ apparel, T-Pain playlists and a stat line that boasts four USAC National Midget wins over the past eight races is a redeveloped perspective.
The last time Thorson won at this clip was 2016 when he won the series title with Keitz Kunz Motorsports. A lot has changed since.
Thorson ascended to the ranks of NASCAR not long after the USAC National Midget championship, only depart the Toyota Racing Development system in 2018.
He’s tried his hand at every kind of open-wheel dirt car and with a plethora of car owners these past three years, trying to see where his unabashed talents eventually stick.
It’s difficult to believe Thorson is only 24 years old considering his scattered journey, but he likes to think his current place with Reinbold-Underwood Motorsports is a final stepping-stone to something more permanent.
“I don’t want to race midgets, obviously, forever but it’s definitely gotten me to where I am now,” Thorson said. “Anytime I can race them and run well, that’s obviously what I want to do. I feel like I’m the senior in the group. There’s a couple guys older than me, but I feel like I’ve been in the midget game longer than anybody out here, as far as full time.”
“I’ve busted my ass,” Thorson added. “I feel like, unfortunately, sometimes what makes you better is wrecking and sometimes scaring yourself. None of us want to do it, obviously. It’s a part of racing. Another thing, too: I want this. A lot of these guys do it just to do it. I work on my car. I set my cars up. I build them. I wash them. I maintain them. You have a lot more appreciation for that stuff.”
Some NASCAR races aren’t out of the picture for Thorson, but he’s refined his desires of late, with winged sprint car racing as the goal.
“That’s what makes more money than anything,” Thorson said. “We’re working on it. We have some stuff in the works. We’re just trying to go after wins right now.”
At the beginning of the year, Thorson couldn’t get the car to drive the way he wanted.
It led to a sluggish start, where he posted just one win and three top fives in 11 starts with the USAC National Midget Series.
Instead of dissecting the discrepancies, he built new cars from scratch and put in overtime with the chassis dyno.
Now, Thorson is making ground in the title race. He’s 113 points behind leader Buddy Kofoid with 21 races to go, charged by five wins over his past 12 races.
“It’s about wanting it,” Thorson said. “It’s about being driven. It’s about making everyone in your group happy, wanting to make a living. I don’t know about everybody, but I want to eventually have a family and have a house you go home to, and a shop. That’s something that makes me drive harder and work harder to be better.”