Affton-Born Midget Car Racer Making Big Name for Himself

“I was the kid nobody knew,” said Brad Loyet about his days at Lindbergh High School. But now his name is known—in the world of midget car racing.

Affton-born Loyet, 23, is a professional racecar driver working at the Loyet Motorsports shop in Jefferson County. He’s been in the midget car racing world for seven years. In June he won the 25-lap Speedway Motors ASCS Warrior Region race in Los Angeles. Now he is in first place in two divisions and expanding his repertoire to new midget car types.

Midget racing uses very small, light-weight race cars with powerful engines in short races. Races are fast and frenetic.

“The midget is a four-cylinder car whereas the wing sprint car goes a lot faster with the V8 engine. The midget has 400 horsepower, and the wing sprint has about 700 horsepower,” Loyet explained.

He began racing micro sprints in high school, and when he turned 16 he started racing Ford Focus midgets, a motor series run through United States Auto Club. Within that year, he began racing full-sized midgets. Loyet stills runs the midget but has added a wing sprint car to his fleet for the 2011 season. 

Where did this fast young man come from? While logging long hours at their landscaping business, Loyet’s mother Lisa encouraged her husband Joseph to get a hobby. So Joe and the young Brad started watching races together. They visited area tracks such as the I-55 Raceway in Pevely, MO, Belle-Clair Speedway in Belleville, IL, and St. Francois County Raceway in Farmington, MO. Brad was hooked.

“Soon enough Brad talked my dad into putting him in a 600 cc micro sprint race car, and he actually ended up being pretty good,” Loyet’s sister Aimee said. “And the rest, they say, is history.”

“I was 14 when I raced my first race,” Loyet said. “Since I was in high school, I would go race in Indiana on Wednesday night, drive back to school for Thursday and Friday then head out for racing on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Once I got into midgets, the races were further away in California and Florida, and I missed more school. Needless to say, I had a lot of class time to make up.”

After graduation, Loyet got his business degree with a certificate in entrepreneurship from Webster University, and his sister, Aimee, earned a communication degree from University of Missouri. Their degrees paid off in their current enterprise. Midget car racing is definitely a business, and if you’re good at it, it pays well.

“The most I’ve ever made in a single weekend was $22,000,” Loyet said. That was his birthday weekend in 2009, at an indoor race at Kemper Arena in Kansas City, MO.

He is looking forward to Chili Bowl, an indoor race at the Tulsa Expo Center in Tulsa, OK. in January, which plans on being televised on CBS. But this weekend, Loyet will be racing his wing sprint car in Wheatland, MO.

They drive down to the races in the rig—one of the two 18-wheelers parked outside the shop with the “Loyet Motorsports” emblem on the cab, specially equipped to haul racecars. This weekend, the family will be joined in Wheatland by Rick and Tim England, another father-son duo who work on the cars throughout the week and at the races. Midget car racing seems to be a family affair.

Loyet is excited to get back on a national tour with his wing sprint car next year. “We raced regional wing sprint shows this year to get our feet wet,” he said. “Next year we will have quite a bit more traveling."