NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. — When he was 10 years old, Jerry Symons sat in the grandstands at Florida’s New Smyrna Speedway with his father to watch the World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing.
He soaked in the action as drivers like Richie Evans, Pete Hamilton, Freddy Fryar, Maynard Troyer, Jody Ridley and Donnie Allison battled for supremacy at the fast half-mile asphalt oval.
It was then when he knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to race.
“I just fell in love with it and always wanted to do it,” Symons said. “When I was a kid just sitting up there watching them go around, I wanted to get in there and go.”
RELATED: Watch every lap of the World Series of Asphalt live on FloRacing
Symons’ love for racing was fostered by his father, himself an old-school racer who once drove midgets in the Northeast before he moved his family to Florida. He took his kids to tracks all over Florida to watch racing, but it was New Smyrna where Symons truly fell in love with the sport.
“My dad, he raced midgets back in New Jersey way back when they probably had leather helmets,” Symons said. “He raced a little bit up there, then he moved down here, and the whole family has been down here forever. Then my older brother, he started racing here, and he raced at the DeLand track a long time ago. Then Volusia and here.
“I’ve just always been around it. Even when no one was racing, my dad would take me to races, to the dirt track at Volusia or here.”
It wasn’t until 1983 when Symons got his first chance to jump behind the wheel of a race car. He’d just graduated high school, and his older brother crashed while racing at New Smyrna.
Symons’ brother said if Jerry could fix the race car, then he could drive it. Symoms leapt at the chance.
“I’ve been here ever since,” he said.
Symons’ career at New Smyrna has been a successful one. He started in the mini stock class before making the transition to the Florida Modified division, where he has become a mainstay and track champion.
At the World Series alone, Symons has registered nearly 50 victories in the Florida Modified class in addition to six championships, with his most recent coming in 2018. Much of that success has come driving for car owner Gene Kelly, the owner of Gene Kelly Roofing, Symons’ main sponsor.
Those wins and championships are a big reason Symons, who is now 58, continues to come back to New Smyrna Speedway to race.
It’s hard to quit when you’re still winning.
“We’ll win a race here and there, and it just keeps you coming back,” Symons said. “If you’re competitive, you know? I’ll keep doing it until I’m not competitive. Once I’m not competitive, I’ll bail out and let my kids do it.
“Like Richie Evans’ quote, ‘If you can win at the New Smyrna Speedway, you can win anywhere.’ And we’ve done that.”
His three sons, Chase, Dalton and Andrew, are the next in a long line of Symons family members who race. Chase will race in the Bomber B class later this week at New Smyrna, while Dalton is currently building a car for the E-Mod class.
Andrew recently graduated from airplane mechanic school and is planning to build his own Bomber B car, though Symons wishes his children would pick different divisions.
“I don’t want them all in the same class,” Symons said as he flashed a quick smile. “I’ve seen it out here in the go kart track in the same class. It’s brutal. They don’t give and take.”
RELATED: Results from each night of the 2024 World Series of Asphalt
Much like his father, Symons hopes to continue to foster the love of racing for his three children so one day they, too, can stand in Victory Lane at New Smyrna.
It’s also not a bad way to keep them out of trouble.
“When I was coming up, my dad, he kept me going,” Symons said. “Right out of high school I’d tell him, ‘Hey dad, I’m not going to race this weekend. The boys have got a party, we’re gonna go to that.’ He was like, ‘No, we’re not going to no party. We’re going racing.’ So he kept us out of trouble in other words. Kept me out of trouble, and I’ve done the same with my kids.
“They’ve grown up racing go karts here at the little go kart track (at New Smyrna). They’ve grown up since they were five years old racing go karts on the weekends. We’ve kind of kept them out of trouble.
“Racing will keep you out of trouble because it’ll keep you broke. You can’t afford any of that bad stuff.”