AUTO RACING PACKAGE: Teen drives his way into career using video games
GLADEVILLE, Tenn. -- Playing video games is the only way most people live out their pro sports dreams. For Brad Coleman, all those hours locked away in his bedroom helped turn his hopes into reality.
Two weeks after graduating from high school, Coleman debuted in NASCAR's Busch Series. He's had a documentary crew filming him for nearly a year for a possible cable television series, and perhaps the only question is how soon he jumps to NASCAR's Nextel Cup.
Not bad for someone who didn't race on four wheels until he was 13.
"If people call me video game boy, I'm fine with that because it's gotten me to where I am right now in my career. Video games are definitely an essential to success in racing, I think," Coleman said.
Games offered the only exposure Coleman had to racing growing up in Houston. His father owned a marketing company, and his grandfather, Don, was a Hall of Fame high school basketball coach.
Sure, he impressed babysitters as a toddler racing a battery-powered car at the mall, and his parents thought he might be a racer when he fell asleep at the age of 4 in his battery-powered Jeep with his foot pressed on the accelerator -- and kept turning circles in the driveway.
But talented enough to go from his first go-kart race to his Busch debut in the span of five years? Yes, and part of the credit goes to Coleman's natural ability honed by years of pretending to be doing his homework when he actually was racing cars on his Sega Genesis, then PlayStation, his computer and then Xbox.
"It all started out on the NASCAR video games," Coleman said. "When I was a little kid, I knew all the NASCAR tracks like the back of my hand. That helps me now."
His father thought it was a phase when his son told him in middle school he wouldn't play basketball again because he wanted to race in NASCAR. Not even attending the 2001 Daytona 500, where Dale Earnhardt died in a final-lap crash, deterred Coleman.
So his father, Brandon Coleman, took him to a new indoor kart center in Houston. He had been driving only five minutes when CART driver Price Cobb, in town for a race, took notice. He asked Brandon Coleman if his son competed.
"Who competes in go-karts? What? You go to Wal-Mart, buy one and challenge your neighbors?" Brandon Coleman recalled. "He said, `It's a huge sport.' I said, `A huge sport? Come on.' He said, `Oh no, hundreds of thousands of people race go-karts."
Over breakfast the next day, Cobb invited Brad Coleman to spend the summer with his team. Coleman calls it probably the best move he's made.
"I went to the race shop every single day, and I traveled to all the races in the summer. Went out to the track at 5 a.m., slept in the race car. They actually had to get me out to go on the track. I learned a lot," he said.
When he returned to Houston, Coleman went into kart racing and won 64 races in three different types of karts around the country. That led him to earn his professional racing license at 14. He was named rookie of the year in the Fran-Am Pro Formula Series with 10 top-fives in 13 races.
His success prompted an invitation from Cobb to live with his family in Virginia and train at Virginia International Raceway, the type of move common for hockey juniors in Canada but rare for would-be racers. The teenager loved virtually living at the track.
"How could I not be happy?" he said.
His quick progression continued because he found the video games, and eventually a full-size simulator helped him learn how adjustments affect a car. By the time he visited a track in person, he'd already raced it repeatedly in his games.
"The only difference is you can't really feel the force of the turns like getting thrown to the side of the car. And you can't feel when you wreck, which is a good thing. You can wreck a lot, hit the reset button and go again," Coleman said of his games.
He finished seventh with his team in the 24 Hours of Daytona in 2005 and moved from Danville, Va., to Martinsville, Va., to finish high school while wrapping up a rookie points title in the NASCAR weekly series with 20 top 10s in 21 races.
Coleman spent almost as much time learning to handle sponsors and the media with his father's help, and he grew up quickly as a frequent flyer to drive on tracks such as Atlanta, Laguna Seca and Sonoma.
"There's nothing teenage about him on the track," his father said. "Off the track, he's got the iPod and playing the video games, doing the kid stuff."
Coleman also pitched himself to team owners at tracks. That's how Clarence Brewer Jr. first met him, and Brewco Motorsports signed him to a development deal of testing, 10 ARCA races and two Busch races to start.
He was the fastest at Nashville Superspeedway in testing his ARCA car. He qualified third and finished second in his ARCA debut in April at Nashville. He won the pole in his second race and led the first 25 laps, while impressing Brewer with his dedication since moving to Kentucky to be near the race shop.
"It looks like Brad is the real deal," Brewer said.
Coleman's Busch debut came at Nashville last weekend, where he qualified 27th and finished 29th. More success may prompt Brewer to add up to seven races that will allow Coleman to run for rookie honors in 2007. Brewer would like Coleman to spend a couple of years in the Busch Series before either joining Robert Yates, Jack Roush or maybe even Brewco's own Nextel Cup team.
"That's the kind of program we're hoping to put together where we keep our connection and don't hold him back from the next step," Brewer said.
The 18-year-old Coleman knows there are people who think he's risen too high, too fast. Running safely and competitively is his only worry, and he can't imagine doing anything else.
And just who did the boy who grew up cheering for Jeff Gordon actually race as in those video games?
"I actually created my own character," Coleman said. "I drive as myself."
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On the Net:
Brad Coleman: www.bradcoleman.us
Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press
This story is from ESPN.com's automated news wire. Wire index
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