‘Speed Addict’ New Lenox Native On Track For Motorcycle Racing Success

NEW LENOX, IL — A photograph of a crying baby sitting in a diaper may possibly feel like a odd source from which to attract passion. But for Kevin Horney, which is precisely when his need to have for velocity apparently commenced.

Horney, a lifelong New Lenox resident and 2020 Lincoln-Way Central graduate, factors to that photograph of himself as a single of the reasons why he is the place he is right now. Horney seems at the decades-aged image that captured him crying as he details to his father and brother as they speed by him on dirt bikes as the second when he realized he was born to trip.

Horney took his 1st filth bicycle trip at age 2. Now, 18 several years afterwards and years right after he begun racing dirt bikes, the vehicle enthusiast turned skilled motorcycle track racer finds himself in the infancy of a career that took off substantially quicker than he predicted, but that appears to have no boundaries.

A racing profession that started when Horney was 6 and ran right up until just right before he commenced higher university, has taken off in methods Horney — who has been operating as a local actual estate agent with the Wexler Group — more quickly than he could have at any time imagined. The transition from his to start with monitor-racing expertise to his first experienced race very last drop at the famed Daytona Worldwide Speedway lasted only a few months, promptly shifting the way that Horney looked at the sport.

“I’m not also positive of the ordinary route people get, but to me, it’s been extremely quickly,” Horney advised Patch this week. “It’s been a fairly considerably everyday living-modifying working experience.”

Horney had usually been knowledgeable of the sport’s best names, but stated he at first stopped racing dust bikes due to the fact of the number of injuries he sustained amongst ages 6 and 14. Despite that, all his childhood idols were motocross racers and named his first doggy right after motocross and stock car or truck racer Ricky Carmichael, further sparking his speed dependancy.

Horney purchased his initially street bicycle in 2019, but then rapidly offered that before turning his awareness to a track bike that would modify every little thing. He located his way to Autobahn State Club in Joliet, in which he discovered the safe and sound and controlled environment a great deal a lot more appealing to ride than on the road, where he admits he had uncovered problems in the earlier.

Just after tests his abilities on a keep track of, the place speeds can access any place in between 150 and 200 mph, Horney saw his enthusiasm for observe racing take off, launching him into a quest to just take his racing career to the up coming stage.

Horney significantly of the credit score for his accelerated leap on to the professional circuit to Owen Johnson, who took recognize of Horney’s social media posts and encouraged him to provide his bicycle to the Joliet track. Johnson, who serves as the northern director of racing Keep track of Time, an firm which hosts track times for motorcycle and vehicle fanatics to place their techniques to the examination in a managed ecosystem.

Inside of times of Horney building his initially track look in Joliet in July, Johnson pushed Horney to get the following stage, which intended building a main jump in the competitive degree at which he raced. While advancing as a result of the ranks of Monitor Time situations and relocating from novice to intermediate and then to sophisticated can take decades, Johnson watched as Horney progressed in just a subject of weeks.

The unexpected progression did not appear with no effort, having said that.

“I saw he was equipped to use what was he was remaining explained to and he rose by the ranks really rapidly,” Johnson explained to Patch on Thursday. “For another person to put in the time and commitment and dollars into it that he place into it, you could explain to he just seriously wished it.

“He was relentless about it. He genuinely desired it. …and it paid off.”

More than the following a few months, Horney visited as numerous tracks as he could, obtaining a sense for different layouts and racing surfaces. Growing his understanding base, he understood, would only pay off in his quest to chase soon after track racing’s largest prize.

Johnson offered Horney with the plan for the Championship Cup Collection/ASRA Sequence 39th Race of Champions at Daytona in early October. At the storied Daytona track that is also dwelling to the Daytona 500, Johnson captured a national championship and put next in 4 other races in what was his introduction to experienced racing.

Because then, he has manufactured designs to expand his racing agenda and has picked up a sponsorship from Olson’s Custom Detailing in New Lenox. He now has his sights established on chasing after the sport’s largest names and is aware the hard work that will be essential to make a identify in the sport’s biggest activities these kinds of as MotoGP, which hasn’t showcased an American racer since 2015 when Nicky Hayden represented the U.S. in the worldwide racing event.

That’s a tall order, Johnson states, but based mostly on the way Horney’s vocation has taken off, finding that stage of achievement isn’t out of the realm of likelihood, he said.

“It’s a tricky organization and there is generally likely to be a person more quickly than you,” Johnson reported. “That’s just the title of the video game. But (Horney) has the possible to (get there). You just have to want it and go immediately after it and then put the operate in and the hard work in, and it is doable.”

Being so younger in his skilled racing journey, Horney has no notion what the upcoming retains, and for now, he’s just holding on for dear existence as he tackles what he understands could be a significant curve. But after discovering achievement at Daytona just a few months into his keep track of racing profession, Horney is completely ready for what the environment of specialist racing throws at him.

“Just being aware of I’m capable to contend at that amount has served me a good deal with personal things in my lifestyle,” Horney explained this week. “This is the only matter that I was at any time superior at so that (good results) genuinely manufactured me truly feel better about myself and over-all, it is just everyday living-changing in each way.”

He added: “I’ve under no circumstances had a little something like this where by I’ve sacrificed so much and put so significantly time and hard work into it and had persons essentially think in me and support me. And that’s the rationale why I’m likely to make this take place for myself – just because folks have supported me so significantly and I want to give it again to the folks who have assisted me.”