J.C. ’08 and Kristy ’10 Kester of Kester Racing boast a team that
is half made up of Aggies, including current students and a professor.
The Kesters are competing in this year’s Star Mazda Championship Series.
Photo Courtesy of Kester Racing
By Krista Smith ’09
It’s another sticky Texas summer, and the sun is particularly
relentless today. It beats down onto the Texas World Speedway, leaving
the track piping hot.
J.C. ’08 and Kristy ’10 Kester and the rest of their team are
finishing up a quick lunch break, trying to escape the heat in an
air-conditioned trailer. The pair’s racecars, No. 24 and No. 48,
respectively, are parked under a covered area, waiting patiently for
their drivers to return. The Kester Racing team has been at it for
hours, day after day, as they time, tune and tweak the new setups on
their Formula E racecars. The bulk of the races in the Star Mazda
Championship Series is approaching fast and furious; Kester Racing has
to be ready.
The racing suits are zipped back up, the helmets come on and the
Kesters are strapped back into their cars, eventually pulling the
vehicles back out onto the speedway, revving up for another long
afternoon.
It’s just another summer day for the Kesters—one of the few brother
and sister racing teams in professional motorsports.
Kester Racing started in Royalty, a tiny town in West Texas, when
Jeff Kester, the pair’s father, began taking J.C. to watch kart races in
nearby Odessa on the weekends. It wasn’t too long until J.C. was racing
a kart of his own. Little sister Kristy begged to be taken to the tracks
to watch her brother race and ended up in a kart of her own before the
day was over.
From that moment, the Kesters dominated the kart racing scene. Among
his other top-place finishes, J.C. is a two-time regional and two-time
national champion in the IKF Road Race Grand Nationals; Kristy has
multiple first-, second- and third-place finishes, including placing
second in the 2005 IKF Road Race Grand Nationals.
The wins were good, the driving was fun, but then came the one
Saturday race when the Kesters realized their karting was more than a
passing hobby.
“Two years ago, we were kart racing, and someone brought a Formula
One car out,” Kristy said. “We sat in it and raced in it. It was like it
was the next natural step.”
The Kesters traded in their karts for Formula E racecars, entering
into the Mazdaspeed Motorsports Development Ladder which promotes Mazda
series champions into the next levels of their career. The Kesters are
racing along with 30 other drivers in the Star Mazda series.
Racing is full of danger, especially since the cars the Kesters drive
easily top 155 miles per hour. The perils of the sport are never far
from the pair’s minds, especially since Kristy had a close call of her
own while still karting.
“I flipped my kart during a race,” Kristy said, pointing at scars on
her arms. “I was going over 100 miles per hour. It was scary, but it was
a good experience to have, to see that’s what could happen.”
Kristy suffered only minor injuries, but the damage had been done to
her kart. The team stayed up all night to build her another car, and on
Sunday, Kristy finished the race in first place.
Racing has taken the Kesters across the country, through Oregon,
Georgia, Florida, New York and even Canada, and the duo has garnered
plenty of attention, but not just for their wins. Kristy is one of few
female racers in a male-dominated sport. And making her situation
unique: she’s competing against her brother.
“I disagree with the other women drivers who say they have to work
harder in the sport,” she said. “I’ve never had any kind of problem with
a guy racer like that. It’s just all about your driving in the end.”
Racing against a sibling does have its advantages. The Kesters look
out for one another on the track, driving smart to avoid wrecks and
other track threats. But the sibling rivalry does tend to kick in during
the final laps.
“If we’ve run a clean race, and we’re both still in it, it’s
anybody’s race,” J.C. said, laughing. “We’re both extremely
competitive.”
It was the appeal of the Texas World Speedway that lured J.C. to
College Station in 2004 to attend Texas A&M. Kristy followed her big
brother in 2006, but had made the decision to become an Aggie long
before racing had come into the picture. Bill Mather, owner of the
racetrack, has been the biggest help to the Kesters’ advancing careers
since he signed on to sponsor Kester Racing, allowing the team use of
the facility.
Balancing college and racing hasn’t been easy. J.C., a 22-year-old
manufacturing and mechanical engineering major, and Kristy, a
20-year-old biomedical sciences major, don’t exactly have the easiest of
classes. The workload will get even harder next semester, as Kristy
begins preparing to take the MCAT.
“Racing is a fulltime job,” J.C. said. “Most of the kids take a year
or two off (of school) because it’s so much. You’re either testing the
cars or at the gym or doing other preparation, and on top of that,
you’ve got tests and stuff at school.”
The pair is also involved in the Society of Automotive Engineers Club
(J.C. has served as president for the past two years) and Texas A&M
Sports Car Club. In fact, it was through these two organizations that
the Kesters met more than half of their racing team. Kester Racing
includes several current mechanical engineering students in its ranks,
and even a professor, Dr. Make McDermott, an associate professor of
mechanical engineering who, along with his students, recently set a
world land speed record in 2007.
The heaps of stress that pile up on their shoulders are bearable
because of the racing, Kristy said.
“It gets me through school,” she said. “It’s a high-stress sport, but
I love doing it. It’s just relaxing, calming, exciting and just this
adrenaline rush.”
Being surrounded by Aggie engineers and having access to a
world-class racetrack has helped the Kesters cultivate their passion for
driving.
“Being here, doing this,” J.C. said, “it’s a dream come true.”
To read more about Kester Racing, visit the team’s website at
http://www.kesterracing.com.
To follow the Kesters and other racers through this season’s Star
Mazda Championship Series, visit
http://www.starmazda.com.
Krista Smith ’09 is a student communications assistant at The
Association of Former Students. To contact her, e-mail at
KSmith09@AggieNetwork.com.
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