PISTON CUP RACERS BACKGROUNDS

## Jimmy Cables

*Jimmy Cables grew up around multiple short tracks in Motor City, Tennessee. During his childhood he went to a few Piston Cup races, all being at Motor Speedway of The South in 1990, 1994, 1998, and 2001 with his parents James and Joan. Throughout his childhood he competed in multiple local events and won multiple races on his local short racks, most notably the most famous Tennessee short track, Northchester Raceway in which he won the Northchester 100 in 1997 at the age of 13, becoming the youngest winner of the event. In 2007, Jimmy got picked to become the first ever Intersection racer in the Piston Cup Racing Series. Jimmy is known for his charm around the garage and is always ready to race hard enough to make his team proud. Sometime during the 2016 Piston Cup Season, Jimmy was fired and replaced getion racer Flip Dover. He currently owns and operates Northchester Raceway in his hometown of Motor City, Tennessee and multiple other Tennessee short tracks.*

## Jack DePost

*Jack DePost came from a Wheelball family, his grandfather Nicholas DePost was a Wheelball quarterback for the Texas Chiefs in the 1940s and 1950s and was inducted into the Hall Of Fame in 1971. His uncle Kurtis DePost was a Wheelball go-ally in the 1970s and 1980s and his father Nathan DePost was a Wheelball coach for the Louisiana Sticklers in the 1980s, 1990s, and the early 2000s. When he turned 18 in 2001, Jack looked to follow his family legacy and became a Wheelball quarterback like his grandfather for the Kansas Lugnuts. Up until 2004 Jack was signed to a 8 year contract lasting thorugh 2012 with the team. However in 2005, Jack saw the 2005 Dinoco 400 and instantly became interested in racing. After the 2005 Wheelball Championship, in which he and his team won the championship, Jack decided to pursue a Piston Cup career. After multiple minor racing series seasons throughout 2006, in 2007 Jack replaced the retiring Rusty Cornfuel at Tow Cap. Jack is known for his jokes around the garage but is also known for his fierce competitiveness. Sometime during the 2016 Piston Cup Season, Jack was replaced by next generation racer J.D McPillar. In 2017, Jack was inducted to the Wheelball Hall Of Fame and currently is the lead commentator for the Wheelball Minor League Series.*

## *Lane Locke*

*From living on low income, to becoming a Piston Cup racer, Lane Locke who was a Speed Burger employee since high school so he could support his 2 brothers and mother after their father's passing when he was 16, was tasked with a new job in his local Minneapolis Minnesota Speed Burger of becoming the fast food joints delivery driver. Now at the age of 19 in 2004, Lane was looking for any other career he could be good at. One night, Lane was very late for a delivery and went way over the speed limit. He ended up swerving into another lane and caused a truck to spin into a ditch. Lane was taken into the local jail when a standby er by the name of Douglass Keith bailed him out. When Lane asked why, Douglass said that he saw his road incident and told him he was impressed by his speed and dodging. Douglass who is the SynerG CEO, was looking to start a Piston Cup team and chose Lane as his development racer. From 2005-2007, Lane trained and trained and competed in lower series races. In 2008 the team and Lane went to compete in the Piston Cup where he small amounts of success with few wins. In the 2016 Piston Cup Season, after Jackson Storm's debut, multiple stock cars were fired and replaced by next generation racers Douglass told Lane that he wasn't going to fire him in 2016 and maybe not even 2017 if Lane could improve, but near the end of the Season, Douglass saw his newly hired assistant, Frederick Braker, or known by many to Eric Braker, deliver his paperwork and oil cans at top racing speeds, convinced Eric to get surgery to become a next generation racer and replaced Lane in 2016. Douglass however did not totally let Lane go and named Lane the Vice President of the SynerG Company since 2017.*

## Markus Krankzler

*Markus Krankzler comes from a interesting background. In his teen years he was a member of the famous gang that roamed New York City, "The Half Lugnuts". He was involved in multiple incidents and served jail time. He was disowned by his parents after twin brother Aiden convinced them he was a waste of a car. Markus roamed the streets with his best friends Roger and Corey who horrified Queens New York as much as Markus. However, Richard Sterling, the richest car in Queens New York, signed multiple gang members of the city to classes in SNYG (Stop New York Gangs) program. Richard the founder and owner of the organization signed over 1,000 Queens gangsters to the program and over half of them converted their lives from gangs to careers. Markus' friends Roger and Corey decided to give up their gang lives to start their own company named R&C Grocery Stores which today has over 5,000 locations in the world. Markus was not easily convinced until he was approached by Richard himself after one of the classes. Richard saw on his surveys that he filled out that Markus loved speed and winning, Richard who acquired the Transberry Juice company just last September in 2008 gave him a job as a development racer. Markus was pretty distant from leaving his gang life to become a racer but gave it a shot and loved it. He did so well in the Piston Cup Junior Series in 2009 that he was promoted in 2010 to become their racer in the Piston Cup replacing Lee Revkins. Sometime during the 2016 Piston Cup Season, Bubba Wheelhouse Jr replaced Markus due to the next generation takeover in the series. Markus then became Vice President of the SNYG Organization from 2017-2020 and in 2021 when Richard Sterling died of fuel pump cancer at the age of 80, multiple of his companies and organizations went to his family but the SNYG one went to Markus who currently owns it today telling his story to gangster looking for change around the world.*

## Chip Gearings

*Chip Gearings has always wanted to adventure the world from a young age due to him sneaking on to his father's business trips around the world and then......... getting in trouble after he was found of course. Being from a rich family, his parents didn't often pay attention to him and he was left on his own most of the time. When he was 20 in 2004, he decided to leave his family mansion to adventure the world. From 2004-2006, Chip traveled to Mexico, Canada, Australia, Austria, Hungary, Belgium, France, and Germany. Following his Germany trip, Chip received word that his father had passed and his mother was very devastated. Not seeing his father since 2004 and he would never see him again, Chip fell into a deep depression. In 2007, Chip and his friend/Busch Series racer, Doctor Peabody attended the 2007 Iowa Hybrid 450 at Rocker Arms International and after that Chip fell in love with racing at high speeds and never looked back. He was the one that was supposed to accept the inheritance of his father's company but didn't even accept that or the will money and gave it all to his younger brother Austin. Chip worked his way up to the top and in 2009 got offered a Piston Cup job of being the Combustr racer, a new team looking for a racer. Chip didn't have too much success but was able to win a few times. During the 2016 Piston Cup Season, next generation racer Chris Roamin' replaced Chip. Today Chip is back on his trips around the world and since 2017, his was now visited Russia, Italy, Syria, Iceland, and Ireland. In 2019 he also started his own travel agency called Chip Gearings Travels and partnered with his brother Austin who owns the family business, Gearings Inc to form the company.*

## Carl Clutchen

*Being a very serious car growing up, Carl Clutchen didn't have many friends and was the nerd throughout his entire school life. Carl graduated valedictorian in high school and went to Princeton in New Jersey to become an engineer. In 2007 he graduated from Princeton, top of his class and went to become an engineer at NASA. However something clicked when one day Carl saw a Chevy Camaro speed down his street and he instantly began to study racing while balancing his NASA engineering. In the end Carl chose racing and in 2009 became the Easy Idle racer. Like Winford Bradford Rutherford, Carl uses his knowledge to compete and now is one of the funniest racers in the garage. During the 2016 Piston Cup Season, next gen Harvey Rodcap replaced Carl. Currently Carl is a engineering professor at Princeton.*

## Speedy Comet

*Speedy "Mr. Comet" was always an outcast growing up and then by the age of 21 in 2003, he became a math teacher at his local high school. But Speedy always was a racing fan of Dale Earnhardt Jr and the Piston Cup. In 2005 he attended his first ever Piston Cup race, being the Dinoco 400 and loved it and felt he had a calling. Speedy then decided to pursue his racing dream and by 2007, he and the Blinkr team agreed to him becoming their first ever racer. Speedy is very Speedy on the track and even won the 2008 Piston Cup against the likes of Lightning McQueen and Cal Weathers in only his second year. In 2016 he was replaced by next generation racer Ryan Laney. Speedy currently does a variety of things, he is the Vice President of Frostar Air Filters, a substitute teacher at his old high school he went to and taught at, Blinkr Racing Center trainer, and owner of Speedy Fixers garage which operates 20 locations in his home state of Georgia.*

## Phil Tankson

*Being from a family of engineers, Phil Tankson already knew that the next gens were coming years before he himself started racing. Despite knowing his and other competitors fate in years time, Phil has enjoyed his time* *as a racer and was never worried about being replaced. Currently Phil studies different types of cars in research facilities and tries to experiment whether some parts and features work on all different types of cars after being replaced by next gen Tim Treadless.*

## Terry Kargas

*From being the most popular kid in school, to being the face of the world's biggest gum company, Terry Kargas originally dressed up as the TripleDent mascot but when he exposed his high speeds in a new ad campaign for the company, they decided to have him promote them on the Piston Cup circuit. After becoming very popular on the track, Terry was chosen as the spokescar being himself in every TripleDent commercial. After being replaced by next gen Cam Spinner, Terry left TripleDent as Cam became their spokescar and went to Hollywood to pursue his acting dream. Since then Terry has been in a total of 10 movies. His most notable was Agent Drift where he played Asher Drift who is one of the biggest spy comic book characters of all time in the late 90s and early 2000s.*

## Dud Throttleman

*Its not every day you interact with your favorite racer, but Dud Throttleman can easily prove that wrong, ever since becoming the Mood Springs racer, Dud has always been signing autographs at the track, hanging with the fans in the stands after practice and qualifying, appearing in his sponsor tent every race, and even making multiple surprise public appearances. He even sometimes appears at high school wheelball games. After being replaced by next gen Ed Truncan, Dud has retired from public places and resides in Los Angeles, California where he normally attends the season finale, Los Angeles 500.*

## Reb Meeker

*Reb Meeker is the one racer that can make a gap where no one else can, using his sneaky skills around the track, he was able to win multiple races, become the fifth tier friend of Lightning McQueen, and even win the 2014 Piston Cup. There isn't a whole lot known about the slick racer from Birmingham Alabama, but there is two things that everyone knows about him, one he loves racing, and two, he hates the color pink. He has since became a design artist and even designed the next gen Tank Coat logo for his replacement Rich Mixon. He even tried to convince the owners to make white the main color on the paint scheme of Rich but they disagreed.*

## Buck Bearingly

*The farmer boy, called by most of his competitors, Buck Bearingly grew up on a watermelon farm in Orlando Florida. As a kid, if he, his parents, and brothers Norman and Jake got enough money from their watermelon sails, they would drive non-stop 1 hour to go to the Florida 400 night race. Instead of staying on the watermelon farm, Buck decided to take his skills at delivering watermelons at great speeds to the race track and has never looked back since after becoming the View Zeen racer. He was replaced by next gen Michael Rotor and has since returned to his family's now abandoned watermelon farm to revive it.*

## T.G Castlenut

*Tyler George "T.G" Castlenut was never planning on racing in the Piston Cup or even ever entering the United States in his entire life. Tyler, who was given the nickname T.G by his older brother Henry, grew up in Cambridge, England and as a young boy, he always loved racing and dreamed of racing on the International Circuits. He was originally a Toyota Supra growing up but in 2002, he converted himself into a Le Motor Prototype J8 and joined the Le Motor Prototype League in 2003 after training in 2002. In 2003, out of the 10 events on the season schedule, T.G won two of them, the 10 Hours Of Silverstone and the 14 Hours Of China and placed a solid 8th in the season standings. In 2003, T.G was setting multiple records, the now extended 15 race schedule played out well for T.G where he set the fastest lap for 11 of those races, the most fastest laps set by a single racer in a single seasons, he was the first racer ever to win the first 4 events of the season, being the 18 Hours Of Europe, 10 Hours Of Silverstone, 20 Hours Of Canada, and 11 Hours Of Monterey Mexico. He won 4 more races that season being the 8 Hours Of Melbourne, 10 Hours Of Berlin, 10 Hours Of Sochi, and 22 Hours Of Spielberg. By race 12 of the season, T.G had a 121 point lead over second place Shu Toderoki his main rival. The british racer however suffered one of the worst non-fatal accidents in the league history and would fail to finish the season out and got 3rd in points. To keep his racing dream alive, T.G decided to go to America and pursue the Piston Cup. He then signed with Revolting and since then has been a rocket with his new stock car model he got. Following his retirement after being replaced by next gen Aaron Clocker, T.G has moved to Tampa Florida but in 2019 he competed in the 24 Hours Of Le Mans, being on the first ever stock car team in the event along side his teammates Peter Rambar, James Addison, and Simon Keaton a fellow British racer.*

## Brian Spark

*No one thought that anyone would ever hate their sponsor as much as Lightning McQueen did in 2005, but when Brian Spark debuted for Leak Less everyone saw his hatred toward his sponsor. He never appeared in the sponsor tent, no public appearances, no ads, to do with the company. Eventually as he grew older, he didn't mind the sponsor and just focused on the racing part of his career. Following next gen George New-Win replacing him, Brian coached his nephew Ed Truncan until Ed was fired in in 2022.*

## Tommy Highbanks

*Tommy Highbanks comes from a background with no asphalt or pavement. He grew up in the Alaska Mountains and raced on the pathways everyday of his childhood. When he turned 16, Tommy left the mountains and moved to Winston-Salem North Carolina to pursue a dirt track career with his dirt tracking talents. After practicing* *around North Carolina, Tommy joined the Piston Cup Dirt Series in 2000 at the age of 17. Tommy who had no sponsor was able to become one of the biggest underdogs in series history as he finished in the top 15 almost every race and got a best finish of 6th. In 2001, Tommy was sponsored by Power Propellers the first 5 races before they left, leaving him with no sponsor again. By the end of the season Tommy had finished 11th in points. In 2002 Tommy returned to the dirt series with what would be his last chance to win due to him being in debt. He however won the 2002 Dirt Series championship and earned a spot on the Faux Wheel Drive development program. In 2007 he became the Faux Wheel Drive racer and has had limited success. In the 2016 Piston Cup Season, Tommy was fired and replaced by Next Gen Herb Curbler.*