In the first race of the 2023 season at Colorado National Speedway in Dacono, Colorado, Brett Yackey was involved in a crash. A hit to his left front sent him spinning, and he was left sitting in the middle of the track. Somehow, he and his team were able to get the car back out and salvage a good finish.
“We finished the race on essentially seven cylinders, and able to finish fourth,” Yackey said.
Yackey knew in that moment if he wasn’t able to finish the race, his championship hopes would have ended before the season got going. Instead, coming home with a top five gave him hope.
“To get lucky enough to be able to continue to race, we felt like we had a good chance of racing for the championship the rest of the season,” he said. “Because our bad luck — but also our good luck — was out of the way.”
The rest of the season wasn’t totally smooth sailing, but Yackey’s team climbed the rankings quickly at the 0.375-mile NASCAR Home Track. They eventually reached the top, and Yackey won the track’s Super Late Model championship by 17 points.
Yackey finished the season with one win and 12 top fives in 14 races.
It was his second Super Late Model track title, and his third Colorado state championship.
After the hiccup in Week 1, about halfway through the season, Yackey said the team found a setup that really worked, and they only got better from there.
“We never had the starting position we really wanted, so we struggled a little bit to have the great finishes we really wanted,” he said. “We were always finishing 2, 3, 4. It wasn’t until the last night of the season everything finally clicked.”
Going into the championship race, Yackey had an 11-point lead in the standings.
Instead of keeping it close and worrying about finishing position, he made sure he locked up the title, winning the race for “one of those storybook endings for the season,” he said.
“When you win the championship but you don’t win the race, there’s somebody celebrating the win and you celebrating the championship. It’s kind of cool, but you’re splitting the glory.
Instead, when you win both, you just go out with a bang. It was really cool for myself but my crew, as well. They’re always working so hard, and I couldn’t do it without them.”
This was Yackey’s sixth track title at Colorado National. He also has championships in the track’s pure stock and super stock division, and two in the late models class.
He called 2023 “one of my most fun seasons.”
“I have my family’s help and support; that’s always great,” Yackey said. “My crew guys are awesome. I hang out with them outside the track. We spend a lot of time together. That also really helps the team dynamics, and we just have a great time… I had probably my best crew, my best overall season. I didn’t win the wins I wanted, but we were consistent and we had a lot of fun. And that’s what we’re doing it for at the end of the day is fun.”
Yackey has been racing at Colorado National since 2014, when he was 14 years old. His dad Bruce has won multiple Colorado state championships and a dozen titles at CNS.
Yackey’s mom also raced, and Bruce still competes in the same division as his son.
“It’s just always been in our entire family,” Yackey said. “It’s really cool. There’s nothing like racing against your own family. I guess the biggest thing is just having somebody out there who is a friend or teammate instead of just a sole competitor. Obviously we race each other hard and have a lot of fun, but when you need it you have a friend out there.”
Even though Yackey has years of experience and thousands of laps under his belt at CNS, he never feels like that experience gives him a leg up on the competition.
“We have so many racers who race there all the time,” he said. “Older racers, my dad has raced forever, so there’s a lot of experience in our division in general. I just feel like my biggest perk, or the best thing I had going for me going into the last night was just being able to do my thing. I was already leading, we had been finishing good. I always feel like our cars are some of the best prepared cars out there, so it was really just in my hands when I got in my car to do the right things and just make it work.”
After the season ended at Colorado National, Yackey and his team went to Arizona to compete at Tucson Speedway on Thanksgiving weekend. There, he set the quick time and won the feature race.
Despite struggles at the beginning of 2023, Yackey’s team built momentum throughout the summer and are feeling good at the beginning of the new year. The team is building a new car for 2024 and will race in Arizona, Idaho and Wisconsin at the beginning of the year before starting another full season at Colorado National.
The good thing about finishing 2023 on such a high note is there is a lot of momentum heading into the future.
“I would certainly think that we’ll be able to transfer this season into next and be able to start off on the right foot,” Yackey said. “There’s a big learning curve with a new car, but we’re pretty confident with what we’re bringing to the track every week.
“So we’re just going to keep having fun and doing the best we can, and at the end of the day it’s just a hobby for us, and we’re having so much fun.”