Jayson Alexander has always wanted to race in NASCAR, and he finally gets that opportunity at Nashville this weekend. The Division 1 lacrosse player joins a club only held by himself. He will become the only person to play a D1 sport while racing in NASCAR. I talked with him before his debut at the iconic Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway this Saturday.

Q: Now, you’ll be making your ARCA debut this weekend, so what are your expectations at Nashville? 

A: Nashville is a really tough track. Now, with the entry list, there are a ton of competitive cars in our area. For us, a top 10 is awesome. We want to bring the car home in one piece, be competitive with the drivers in our block, and not be a nuisance on track. The whole thing is to learn and gain more knowledge and not wreck the car, especially being here at a track like Nashville.

Q: How are you able to fluctuate between college, racing, and playing sports? 

A: It’s really tough- especially on the D1 level, having 25 hours a week for practice, now you put on the classes, ROTC, everything on top of racing, but it’s stuff I signed up for; it is very hard but it’s all top on how we can fit, and when something needs to take a backseat it will, making sure I keep the commitments I want, like during sports season I have lacrosse in the front seat, racing on the side, and vice versa. While it’s hard, I really expect to have fun and love it, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Q: How do you feel now that you’ve finally got your break, racing in ARCA for the first time?

A: It’s been really awesome now that I’ve known to finally race in ARCA and I’ve known it was a long shot starting to race older than most. When you don’t run Karts or bandos (Bandoleros), you go straight to pro late models. It has been very difficult and now we’ve got through these growing pains, it’s really awesome to know the time has come. All the late nights, the sponsorship calls, and that the time has come for me to do what I want, which is to just drive. 

Q: When you’re off from college and sports, how do you test for these races?  Do you test on IRacing or NR2003, does it help?

A: Yeah, absolutely. I’m straight from Sim to real life, and it really helps. After this call, I’ll be running a sim, 150 laps at Nashville with some other drivers and crew members. I love it, but I also do test days. I have two years of knowledge, so whenever I can test, I can run it. For example, I did a test at Hickory to get ready for Nashville, and it really helps.

Q: We know you’ve raced some late models, has that helped to ease you into ARCA?

A: Yes, absolutely. It’s been really fun to run in pro lates and really unique between the two. Now, I’ve moved into late model stocks to run an off-set chassis to learn how an ARCA car runs, and the change from pro to stock is showing. It’s definitely showing while running here, and having these differences in equipment, racing against other people, communicating with my team, and how we feel isn’t inside the sim.

Q:Finally, when will we see you again after Nashville?

A: After Nashville, we’ll see you guys next week at Flat Rock, then a couple more dates waiting to be announced, but after the beginning of June, I’ll be going to military training, but you’ll definitely see me for more races before I’m out of here for a while.

I once again thank Jayson for his time to talk with me, and I wish him luck for the rest of the season. Jayson races with Fast Track Racing at Nashville and Flat Rock, back to back weeks. The standalone Nashville race is on FloRacing at 8:00 eastern on Saturday.