LOUDON, N.H. — NASCAR will crown two Iron Men on Sunday.
Jeff Gordon, who will take the nod for most consecutive races run (789) in the Sprint Cup Series when the green flag drops for Sunday’s Sylvania 300 (2 p.m. ET, NBCSN/Live Extra), will occupy most of the headlines, but Camping World Truck Series driver Ben Kennedy‘s pursuit of IRONMAN triathlon status is nothing to ignore.
Following the conclusion of Saturday’s UNOH 175 (1 p.m. ET, FS1), Kennedy will hop on a plane with his mother, Lesa France Kennedy, en route to Augusta, Georgia, where the pair and her boyfriend will all compete in a 70.3-mile IRONMAN race.
We’ve seen fitness freaks Jimmie Johnson, Landon Cassill and Josh Wise spend their off-time training for these types of events, but until recently it never appeared to be on Kennedy’s radar.
“I don’t know (how it happened),” the 23-year-old said Friday at the ‘Magic Mile.’ “It came about in November of last year. We were all sitting down at dinner; it was me, my mom and her boyfriend and we’d done some small triathlons, 5Ks but nothing major.
“I’ve always wanted to do at least a half IRONMAN and we were probably a little bit crazy in the head (at the time), but it was something that we committed to and now we’re here doing it this weekend.”
Kennedy said that as his career has progressed, he’s come to realize the importance fitness and nutrition play when he’s in the truck. There have been a few “wake up calls”, as he put it, when he realized he needed to be more physically fit as he advanced within the sport and races got longer and more demanding.
Now, he’s using the same training program that Carl Edwards, arguably NASCAR’s fittest driver, uses and he’s seeing the benefits play up both off the track in his alternate racing career and on the track, where he already has more top-fives and is on pace to earn more top 10s than his 2014 campaign.
Kennedy’s competitive nature — which every NASCAR driver certainly needs, to an extent — is apparent, but he’s keeping his expectations in check for Sunday, when he’ll have to swim 1.2 miles, bike 56 miles and run 13.1 miles just to complete the grueling race.
“I’ve got two different goals and I’ll just be happy finishing, honestly,” said Kennedy, whose other goal is to place first in his age group and qualify for the next stage in Australia. “Especially after this weekend, because I’m going to race on Saturday and jump on a plane right after to fly down to Georgia.
“Only thing I’m worried about is being kind of wired after the race, because I know I’m going to be wired even more so about Sunday morning. I don’t know how much sleep I’ll get.”
No matter if he places first or not; or even if he finishes or not, the five months of training that led up to Sunday are enough to be proud of for anyone, let alone a NASCAR national series driver trying to balance a race schedule on top of a routine that saw him doing two of the three legs every day.
Sunday will tie Kennedy back together with his childhood hero, whose legend in the sport will be further ingrained around 2 p.m. ET.
Just another reason for him to admire the four-time Sprint Cup Series champion.
“With everything that Gordon’s done for the sport; I remember when I was, I think, 3 years old, I had the opportunity to meet him and he was the first driver I think I ever met,” Kennedy said. “I made that connection in the back of my mind growing up through my childhood that he was always my favorite driver.
“It’s so cool to see him running so good at this point of his career. You look at some athletes and they’re not at their strongest the last couple years of their career, but Jeff Gordon, he’s as strong as he’s ever been, especially in the field that’s out there; it’s so unbelievably competitive. It’s cool to see what he’s done and brought to the sport.”