Most of today’s PAS fans are not aware of Kevin Urton, since he has done most of his racing in northern California. Kevin is a veteran racer who after accompanying his father to races with the BCRA and at West Capital as a child, stepped into a Limited Modified at Sacramento’s West Capital Speedway in 1979. Kevin was a member of his high school football team as the first string tight end, but dropped off the team to devote more time to racing. Urton was also a baseball player from Little League through high school, exhibiting enough skills to gain a tryout with the Oakland “A”s.

Kevin’s ascended to the driver’s seat in 1979 at West Capital and in the early eighties drove the cars of Jack Gordon and Bob Campos racing on the NARC circuit. Pursuing his racing, Kevin traveled to many of the northern California venues, some now long forgotten like Dixon Fairgrounds and Ernie Pursell Raceway. Urton recalls an early experience at Calistoga, when he lined up for the feature alongside the revered “Preacher”, Gary Patterson and racing against a couple of early heroes, Jimmy Boyd and LeRoy Van Connett. Urton ran with NARC from 1982 to 1987.

During the first few years, Urton moved in and out of several rides and then in the late eighties, Kevin settled in with the Ken Pierson #14 car. For the next ten years, this combo ran with NARC, Golden State and the Civil War Series, amassing over eighty victories at tracks throughout northern and central California. Kevin recalls numerous occasions when they would be enroute to one track and end up stopping at another. Kevin won the 1993 and 1995 Civil War championships, as well as the 1996 & 1997 USAC Championships, while in the Pierson car and also competed with CRA in the early nineties at tracks like Bakersfield, Placerville and Antioch.

In 1999, Kevin purchased a car to run the USAC Western States Pavement Series. About this time, Kevin became acquainted with Damion Gardner, who was just starting his sprint car career. Damion refers to Urton as his sprint car mentor that not only counseled Gardner on racing setups and driving techniques, but also instilled some history, tutoring Damion on many of the icons of the sport before his time.

At the beginning of 2002, Urton considered bringing a 360-powered car down south for the SCRA day show at Perris. Instead, Kevin joined the Gardner team believing non-wing day racing against a stellar field would be beneficial to Damion’s advancement. Skeptical SCRA racers looked to Gardner as just another high flying racer with a lot of horsepower, who just happened to finish sixth in his first outing on dirt without a wing.

To help Damion continue to travel to each SCRA event, Urton purchased that winged Gaerte motor, then loaned it back to Damion for a backup on the NWWC tour. When the season ended, Kevin also bought the chassis that Gardner had won with at Williams Grove.

This year after installing the now returned loaned engine, Urton planned to travel south to participate in his favorite, non-wing dirt track sprint racing. His outings this year with SCRA have been up and down, but he has qualified and run well enough to place Kevin in several dashes. Urton was excited as he lined up sixth in a feature and was surrounded by the likes of Griffin, Kruseman, Williams, Rutherford, Ostling and Gardner, all significant names on the national level.

Kevin Urton was born forty-four years ago in Castro Valley, California and now resides in Elk Grove with his wife, Nancy. Like Dale Jarrett, Urton also chooses not to race the “Big Brown Truck”, but does drive it during the week, having been with UPS for sixteen years. Kevin’s racing hero from childhood was Dick Atkins, then running with BCRA. As a teen he helped out Jimmy Sills, who would stop by and pick up Kevin and take him to the race shop to work on the car, because Urton didn’t have a license yet. Kevin’s heroes from his early racing years are Jimmy Sills and Jimmy Boyd.

Urton singled out Bob Stafford who worked on the first Modified and Sprint rides and also Tommy Hunt for being helpful early in his career. Two racers that influenced his driving career were Dave Bradway Sr. and Hank Butcher.

Kevin operates his racing operation without any sponsors and says that he appreciates his wife’s sacrifices. Since making these journeys south by himself, he is trying to get Robbie Newman and girlfriend Lisa McBroom to sign on as Chief and Crew. Leisure time activities were described as a set of dusty golf clubs and Rat Bag racing against Damion Gardner.

Stop by the pits and welcome Kevin Urton to the SCRA family. He is a twenty-five year veteran, who states that there is nothing better than Non-Wing Dirt Sprint Car Racing. You gotta love this guy!