Special Motorsports Event - Derek Daly Academy Launches Junior Program

Noblesville, Oct. 7, 2011: Derek Daly, founder of the Derek Daly Academy, is pleased to announce the creation of a new Junior Program targeting young career minded kart racers. The objective of the DDA Junior Program is to give direction to those young karters and their families and to best prepare the driver for the transition to race cars. The program will be led by Nathan Brown who has been a fixture of the North American karting scene for the past 20 years and is very excited about the opportunity. For the last ten years Brown been working internationally with young kart racers and has witnessed many drivers and parents get lost in what they are trying to achieve in their kart racing, resulting in wasted time and money.

“I'm really excited about joining DDA and heading up the Junior Program,” comments Brown. “I respect what Derek (Daly) is trying achieve with his career development program and the next logical step was to include the young kart racers to ensure that they can take a short cut to the knowledge and experience that they need when it comes time to move into the next phase of their career.”

The focus of the Junior Program is to help prepare kart racers and their families for the transition from karting to race cars. Working with athletes age 12 and up, the DDA Junior Program is about knowledge and experience transfer and helping to make good decisions in the final years of kart racing. Also there are several steps that can be taken to ensure that a kart racer makes the most of his or her transition from karting to race cars. DDA is essentially making 40 years of experience available to a select few kart racers who have a dream of being a professional race car driver. Along with helping to build a solid racing resume, DDA focuses on helping to build a strong marketing resume.

“The Junior Program is the brain child of DDA Partner Jeff Grist. I really like what the program can do for kart racers before they make the transition to race cars,” comments Daly from his home near Indianapolis, IN. “This is a very complex and difficult sport to succeed in at the highest levels. Parents tend to make emotional decisions when it comes to their kids and racing, especially in karting, mainly because of their lack of knowledge and experience. DDA wants to make that knowledge and experience available. Nathan is the ideal person as he has proven he really understands karting and how to move a driver from karts to race cars. Getting the athlete and the parents pointed in the right direction is so critical for the return on their investment. We have all seen far too many young racers fall short of their goals.”

In 2008 Daly published his first book, Race to Win: How to Become the Complete Champion. The book outlines Daly’s ground breaking Champions Pyramid and introduces the concept of Talent Identification to the motorsports world. The foreword for this book was written by racing legend and long time friend Mario Andretti who went on to say: “Derek’s book teaches the lessons it took guys like me years to learn. Quite honestly, I believe the advice in this book resonates far beyond the racing industry.”

DDA is in the business of developing motorsports athletes through a unique and soon to be copyright protected system of vision alignment, driver profiling, environment management, financial planning and marketing development all branded as the X Factor. This system, along with the Champions Pyramid, forms the structure that leads to the development of what is called the Complete Champion.

For more information on the Derek Daly Academy and the DDA Junior Program contact Jeff Grist at jeff@derekdalyacademy.com or 905.328.7458 or Nathan Brown at nathan@derekdalyacademy.com or 705.345.2031. Please be sure to check out our website at www.derekdalyacademy.com.