For most of us, all driving at fast speeds and flying around turns will get us is blue and red flashing in our rearview mirror, for Steinbrenner Junior Micheal De Quesada, it gets him Rolex watches and victory trophies. After years of racing go karts in youth leagues, De Quesada started to race professionally at the age of 12.
“My dad did it for fun, and when he started becoming successful on his own he started doing it as a hobby. When I was four I started racing go-karts and I raced those until I was about 12 or 13, and then around then I started racing cars for the first time,” said De Quesada. After many minor victories around the U.S. and Canada, he recently won his first major victory in the Daytona 24 hour, an endurance race in Daytona Beach, FL.
“The competitiveness is what drove me to it. It’s not an easy sport by any means, it’s one of the hardest around and it’s really just hard to understand unless you have done it. You always have something to work for, you always have something to learn and you always have someone to compete against,” said De Quesada when asked about his motivation stems from. De Quesada believes that while he wants to pursue a college education, that he is also going to continue working his way to making racing his full time career.
“It is such a time consuming sport, and it takes a lot of mental focus. You have to have intelligence about the engineering side of it, you need to know everything about your car and you need to know what your car needs when and what adjustments you need for your car. You also need to know how to drive a car fast, and its not easy, but its probably the easiest part because once you get out of the car that’s when all the hard work starts. You have to talk to your engineers and the whole team, and do a ton of media events and its all very time consuming.”
De Quesada is looking forward to his next big race, the Seabring 12 hours, another endurance race, as his next possible win. He is currently beginning a full season of Porsche GT3 Cup USA and Canada, and is continuing to do the Weathertech championship which are long endurance races, for a partial season.
“Every guy you see on T.V., they had to start somewhere. Most racers don’t start when they are 20, or even when they are in their teens, they start when they are tiny kids and they devote their life to it,” said De Quesada, ” The ones who succeed are the ones who know how to do it when they are not in the racecar. How you handle the media and the publicity and how to be a people person, that’s what makes you successful. I wanna keep racing sports cars and just take it as far as I can go, and I am working my way right now.”
While most Steinbrenner students barely have their drivers license, Micheal will continue roaring down the track with 485 horsepower at his fingertips.
Adler Shannon // Co-Sports Editor
