Midlothian middle schooler Jackson Fooks speeds toward a future in NASCAR

MIDLOTHIAN, Va. — It is the prerogative of every grandparent to spoil their grandkids, but the grandparents of Midlothian's Jackson Fooks could not have known what they were getting the family into when they took their 9-year-old grandson to his first go-kart track.

"My grandparents gave me a gift card, and everyone told me I was pretty good, and I should maybe try some real go karts," Jackson Fooks said.

"He did so well," said Jackson's dad, Jordan Fooks. "They were like, have you guys been here before? And I told him, No, this is our first time. And they said, we need to come out to the league night. So we came out and did the competition league night, and he won his first league night. And it kind of just snowballed from there."

Jackson won a pair of state championships racing in go-karts, including at Langley Speedway in 2024.

That led to racing in the Legends Car series in 2025. The vehicles are 5/8ths scale replicas of 1934 Fords with motorcycle engines inside. They can run up to 130 miles per hour and go from 0 to 60 in four seconds.

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It is a significant learning curve, especially for a middle schooler who is still a few years away from being able to drive himself to the track.

"A lot of practice, these cars are really fast," Jordan said. "They're really hard to drive. They say, once you can drive these, and you get good at it, you can drive any car."

Mike Gwaltney owns CMG Motor Sports and has been around racing in Virginia for the last 40 years. He serves as Jackson's crew chief, consultant, and coach. He has been with Fooks Racing for the last two years and saw Jackson's talent almost immediately.

"I've driven, like I said, a lot of different cars, and the legend car is by far the hardest thing I've ever drove. They're fast, they're quick, and it happens really fast on the racetrack, especially somewhere like here, with the speeds that they're running. Here happens so fast, so quick reaction times are a must," Mike Gwaltney said. "We started off just like everybody else, making, you know, 22-second laps out here, and we just worked at it. We put the work in, and, you know, the family and put everything behind him, and we were out here practicing when we didn't have to."

Gwaltney said he's got the talent — they just have to work on his race craft.

"The race craft is tough. And the only way you get race travel is to race, you just gotta get the seat time," Gwaltney said.

That time on the track is sometimes spent running against competition that is significantly older than Jackson. What his talent cannot teach him is how to overcome any stereotypes against his age and how to deal with this sport when things do not go as planned.

"If, for some reason, the car is not right, or he's not driving it the way it needs to be driven that day, he gets frustrated. And so it's just trying to cool down, learn from your mistakes, and just trying to race yourself and just constantly build off of that and get better," Jordan said.

"They like him. They like races around around him. They trust him. They know what he's going to do on the racetrack. He doesn't make really dumb mistakes on the racetrack. So he does all the right things, and plus, he's a good kid off the racetrack too," Gwaltney said.

Jackson's first win last year was at Dominion Raceway. He won finishing sideways, which drew a lot of interest online. But to get to his ultimate goal, which is NASCAR, will require more than just developing his talent.

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"If it was down to talent, no question, no question, he could go as far as he wants to go, but unfortunately, we got to get some backing for him and get him some good sponsors and take him to the next level," Gwaltney said.

"We decided that we're going to go all in and see where it takes us," Jordan said. "So just kind of following, chasing his dream, and we'll see how far he can go with it."

One of Jackson's favorite drivers is Denny Hamlin, another Chesterfield native who worked his way up through the lower series.

Because he will run between 60 and 70 races this year, Jackson is now homeschooled with an eye on getting to the late model series where Hamlin first made his presence known.