BIOGRAPHY
Davey was born in Boise, Idaho on March 15th, 1997. Most of his childhood was spent split between Indiana and Idaho. With his racing being based in the midwest but being from the northwest he was always traveling back and forth. Davey’s life and racing career started long before he was born. It started out with his grandfather’s racing career long ago and making a major impact and accomplished big things in sprint car racing. Then his father followed his footsteps in racing and had a successful career as well. When Davey Jr. was born it was obvious that he was also going to be a race car driver in the family. He was less than a month old when he went to his very first Indycar race to watch his father compete. At just 4 years old, he started his career, racing go karts and outlaw-karts. He even won his very first race! He would go onto compete in go karts and outlaw karts winning races and championships around the west coast. When he turned 12 he started to compete in Ford Focus Midgets and 600 Mini Sprints along with still competing in go karts all around the midwest. When he was just 15 he started to get his feet wet testing more advanced and powerful cars such as Sprint Cars and USf2000s to get him ready to make the jump into the next level of his career. As soon as he turned 16 he was old enough to race Sprint Cars.
Being the youngest driver, he was able to clinch The Rookie of The Year. In just his second year competing in Sprint Cars he was consistently running top 3 and was able to get his first national Sprint Car win and was the champion runner up in The King of The Wing series in 2014. On top of such a great season he also made his first USAC Silver Crown appearance at Lucas Oil Raceway. He had a stellar season at the age of 18, he managed to win most of the Western Sprint Car Series races that year which led him to become the WSCS Champion being the first and youngest champion ever in that series! He made his first appearance in the legendary Sprint Car race The Little 500 and was able to bring home a 6th place finish giving him the Rookie of The Race award. Throughout that year he was also signed on a testing program for an Indylights team giving him thousands of miles of seat time behind an Indylights car. With Davey continuing to grow his Sprint Car knowledge and ability he captured the King of the Wing National Championship and the Orchex Sprint Car Series Championship. He also debuted his first year in Super Modified racing at Oswego Speedway and captured the Rookie of The Race award in the legendary Budweiser Super Modified Classic. That wasn’t his only major debut of 2016, he also made his first appearance racing in the Indylights series at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca driving for Mccormack Racing. Coming from a successful season, he decided to venture off into other forms of racing and doing as much as he could without going after any full time championship in 2017. This allowed him to become a development driver for Always Evolving and getting the opportunity to make his debut in the Stadium Super Trucks Series at The GP Streets of St. Petersburg the same weekend of the Indycar series racing there as well. Showing an impressive debut that weekend running with some of the best names in the series such as Robby Gordon, Arie Luyendyk Jr., and PJ Jones to name a few. With such a great debut this gave him the opportunity to compete a few more Stadium Super Truck races at The Long Beach Grand Prix and the special race event in Beijing, China. Throughout the year he would compete in selective Sprint Car, Midget, and Silver Crown races as well. At the end of the 2017 season, Davey wanted to try out another form of racing making his debut in the Nascar K&N series at Kern County Raceway for John Wood Racing with primary sponsorship partners of Leavitt Machinery and Always Evolving.This was his first time racing in a stock car and made the most of it. A few weeks later Davey was making his final race appearance of the year in a Winged Sprint Car at Irwindale Speedway driving for Glenn Hutchison Racing. With an extremely impressive weekend running up front the entire race fighting for the lead every lap. With 8 laps to go, his race came to an abrupt end as he was involved in a severe racing accident that found himself being rushed to the hospital and ended up with a fractured t-4 in his spine, fractured ribs, and an extremely severe concussion which led to being seen by some of the best brain injury doctors in Indianapolis and Miami. This put him out of doing any more racing, training, or even going out for a good 4 months. After being out for that period of time, he made a few goals he wanted to accomplish in 2018 as a bounce back from his severe crash. With little time remaining left to be able to compete in the Indy Lights race at
Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the Freedom 100 race he was able to pull it off and make it happen with the help of Ivey Motorsports driving for Team Pelfrey for the race. The race week of the Freedom 100 wasn’t the only big race Davey was doing that week, he also was competing in the Sprint Car race The Little 500 for his fathers race team. This led to a busy week of going to 2 different race tracks back and forth every day to practice at each venue. With qualifying taking place at both tracks on the same day it was a busy day. Starting off with qualifying 7th for the Indy Lights race at Indianapolis Motor speedway, he then had to rush to the helicopter pad at the track then was transported via helicopter to Anderson Speedway to qualify for The Little 500 in the Sprint Car. As the other competitors for this race were able to practice all morning, Davey only was able to do his qualifying attempt without any practice. Upon arrival he had to sprint and hop in the Sprint Car that they had ready waiting in the qualifying line. His father wanted him to scratch his first attempt to put engine heat in the motor and get a feel for the handling, however Davey Jr. saw his first warm-up lap time on the board and knew he had a good car and decided to finish his qualifying run which resulted in him being the fasted car of the day awarding him the Pole Position for the 2018 running of The Little 500! This was a huge milestone in Davey Jr’s racing career. This was a very special moment as he “flew in and flew to the pole” starting the famous race in 1st position. The next day was the Freedom 100 race and unfortunately due to not having the best set up for the race he almost was involved in a crash and had to ease the car the rest of the race but it was a great accomplishment and moment. Then the Little 500 race
being the following day, he was consistently running up front back and forth between the lead and 2nd place for about 250 laps (halfway). The same time they were doing pit stops his race came to an abrupt halt after the engine blowing up. This was unfortunate as the team thought it was their race to win as being the fastest car in the field. For the rest of the 2018 year, Davey was in a tough spot with minimal sponsorship funding so it was all about finding funding for the rest of the year. As September came around Davey came into finding a business partner to help keep his racing career going, along with making it a successful venture. This is when Hamilton Junior Group Inc., was formed to attack racing, build a multi year plan, marketing, and to be able to turn it into a successful money flowing business. After a few months of getting everything set up and figured out they decided to launch doing their first racing events in California and Las Vegas. Competing in the final Sprint Car race of the season at Irwindale Speedway, Davey had the fastest car all weekend and on lap 1 of the race went from 7th to 2nd and passing for the lead on lap 2, his motor blew up ending his chances of the win. The next weekend going to Las Vegas to compete in the Go-Kart Skusa Super Nationals. This was his first time competing in the serious and showed some serious improvements until taking a major hit into a concrete barrier with his helmet resulting in a 2nd concussion just a year later after his 1st one. Fortunately this was the last event of the year so he had down time to be able to recover from it. Although not getting any medical attention or telling anyone about it led to not knowing when he would be fully recovered from it. Still continuing to keep it hidden, with the chance to compete in Mexico racing in the Stadium Super Truck Series in January of 2019, Hamilton Junior Group Inc., decided to do it. After the flying and competing in the trucks when he got back to Indianapolis he knew something wasn’t right mentally. This led to the biggest downfall and biggest mistake of Davey’s life. This resulted in the termination of Hamilton Junior Group Inc., and led to his life and career being put on pause for the next couple of years. 2 years of still battling with legal issues and working on getting his life back. This has given him 2 years to take a long break, re-evaluate, and work on himself to be a better person. He didn’t just lose his freedom, he lost everything from his personal house, relationships with family members and friends, destroying his brand and families name, and also completely destroying his career that he worked so hard for ever since he was just 4 years old. With having years to be able to work on himself and do all the right things to get his freedom back and show everyone a new and better him he has been able to get the help and guidance he needed to do just that. While still going through the process Davey has learned a lot and continues to do the right things to be able to get his life back. This has also given him the chance to work on getting involved in other ventures outside of racing. He has been putting all of the pieces together to have an extremely good rebound plan and story. Not only does he plan on getting back behind the wheel again, he also plans on sharing his story “The Path to Get Back on Track” and motivational speaking to young adults to help guide them or prevent anyone from making the same mistakes he did. He also has the vision and connections made to start his own foundation, The Davey Hamilton Jr. Foundation, which will help raise awareness towards mental illnesses, brain injuries, and also helping with people getting a second chance at life. With a long journey still to go, he is fortunate to have a great group of people around him to help with making a great rebound possible.