\u00a0\u201cI have to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was Austin Varco\u2019s reaction when he found out that NASCAR was coming to San Diego in June.<\/p>\n
The top stock car series will descend on Naval Base Coronado, just minutes away from where Varco went to school at Coronado High.<\/p>\n
Austin is 25, he is a San Diego kid, and he grew up in a racing family. Over the last few years he\u2019s made a career of it, at various lower divisions \u2013 including the NASCAR weekly series, with the hope that he\u2019d soon be able to make the jump.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been planning on a move to this (Cup Series) for a while. This just felt like the perfect opportunity. It doesn\u2019t get any better than this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fortunately, Austin\u2019s success landed him on the radar of NASCAR owners. He is hopeful that will land him a spot in San Diego\u2019s truck series race \u2013 just so long as they can drum up the necessary financial support.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe minute I heard about it I fired off some texts,\u201d Austin said. \u201cThere\u2019s not any other race on the calendar I\u2019m excited about except this one.\u201d<\/p>\n
A successful hometown debut could be a springboard to more opportunities. It would not be something he\u2019d take lightly, especially given the challenging road he\u2019s traveled to reach this point in his career.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there were signs growing up that something about me was different.\u201d<\/p>\n
Austin started batting depression as a teenager. He had trouble focusing and struggled in social settings. When those issues followed him to college at USC, Austin decided to get to the root of them. At 20 years old he was diagnosed with autism and ADHD.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cIt made a lot of sense,\u201d Austin explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think for a while it was a negative thing and then it became incredibly positive,\u201d he added. \u201cI was granted all these tools that helped me be successful when I needed it.\u201d<\/p>\n
And the crucial realization that he is not alone. Austin wanted to help others who might not feel comfortable in the noisy, chaotic environment of an auto race, much less ever be able to get behind the wheel.<\/p>\n
In 2022 he started Race4Autism and began holding events throughout California.<\/p>\n
Austin brings racecars and simulators \u2013 including the one he trains on \u2013 to those events so fans and others interested in the sport can get a hands on experience.<\/p>\n
“We just talk racing and we talk motorsports in an environment that people are comfortable with,\u201d Austin said. \u201cAnd hopefully get them excited about racing.\u201d<\/p>\n
You may have noticed signatures on one of Austin\u2019s trucks \u2013 many of those are from people took part in race4autism events. <\/p>\n
Austin\u2019s success on the track had led to more opportunities for him, and in turn \u2013 some cool experiences for folks that are close to his heart.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing I\u2019m really passionate about is racing and making a difference, so that\u2019s my way to do both.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0\u201cI have to do this.\u201d That was Austin Varco\u2019s reaction when he found out that NASCAR was coming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,13208,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-607198","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-coronado","11":"tag-nascar","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}