Travis Walters .... Living Life in the Fast Lane !

                                                                

Travis Walters is what you can call a triple threat when it comes to motorsports, he can drive, fabricate and tune. In his short professional carer he has worked for some big powerhouse teams. He is not a novice by any means, as he has been around racing his whole life. 

Travis grew up in Ocean City, Maryland and his father was into racing so when Travis was six years old he started racing Go-Karts, shortly after he was in the winners circle. He had the drive to something bigger. When Travis was just 10 years old he was a crew member & turned wrenches on a Super Late-model full body dirt track car, he did that until he was 18.

 

 

                                                  Young Travis checking out the progress on his fathers latest build.

              Travis looking over the UNOH  UMP Late Model race car before going to Volusia for the Dirt Car Nationals.

Fast forward a few years, Travis went through the motorsports program at UNOH where he honed his skills in automotive fabrication & repair and now has 10 years of professional experience. With a full decade of hands on experience building and crewing on the fastest race cars in the world.  He now uses this experience to develop and bring to life the products used in constructing the racing machines of tomorrow. 

One of his first jobs was working for multi-year champ John Force out of the Brownsburg, Indiana race shop from 2017 to 2019. He then moved on to work for Larry Morgan Racing. As if it wasn't an honor to work for one legend, Travis got to work for two such greats in such a short time in in his career.

 

 Travis is also a fabricator and landed a job over at Jeg's, he became their lead Solidworks design Engineer. He worked in the in the Jeg's private label division utilizing Solidworks software to produce 2D and 3D designs for new parts in the automotive racing world.

 

 As opportunity presents it's self you have to move on, and move on he did. Travis now works for  Kalitta Motorsports as a full time technician on Doug Kalitta's Top Fuel Dragster. Travis's position is working on the bottom-end of the nitro-methane burning machine, as well as pitching in where ever he can.

 Travis was promoted and is now responsible for assembling and maintaining superchargers and ignition systems for the Top Fuel car.

The latest thing for Travis in 2023 is that he is staring his own  venture, racing Midgets. Since he raced in the dirt before he is confident that he will do well. Here is a behind the scenes look of his new car named the Joker.

 

These cars might be far removed from a nitro car but the power to weight ratio is amazing. The car can fit a 210-220 lb driver with ease. These little beasts are powered by 4-cylinder engines making 200-250 horsepower. Travis's car is powered by a stock General Motors Ecotec 2.5 liter engine, it's only rated at 250 H.P. but with a lightweight chassis and short wheel base these cars are a handful to get around the track. 

They are restricted to very few modifications to keep the class budget friendly, The engine is equipped with mechanical fuel injection and there is no transmission. It runs a direct drive system so basically it's all throttle controlled and the engine is kept up in the higher rpm band  where it makes most of its power up to an 8,000 rpm red line. 

Travis is still going to work full time for Kalitta Motorsports  and he is going to plan his race schedule around the NHRA tour. He wants to race at the Chile Bowl and Circle City and plans on running at least eight races in 2023.

Travis has passion for motorsports and is fully supported by his family and Doug Kalitta who is a former USAC champ. 

 Travis thanks his sponsor Schaeffer's Specialized Lubrication for their support.

Special thanks go out to: Alan Bradley from Schaeffer's Oil, Randy Lajoie from The Joie of Seating, Brad Noffsinger from RevChem Composites, Chuck and Greg who put in the long hours to schedule and run the Midwest Thunder Midget series sanctioned by USAC.

And of course a big thank you to Mom & Pops with their support from Walters Seafood.

Thanks Travis for sharing your story with us, we look forward to updating it as your career progresses.

Photos courtesy of Travis Walters Racing 2023.

Video by the NHRA.