Reid Halpin of Wading River thought a wreck he was involved in Sunday at Riverhead Raceway had cost him the 2023 Bandits Championship.
It turned out the crash cost him his fifth feature win, but when the points were tallied, the 10-year-old race car driver’s performance this season secured the championship.
He quickly overcame his surprise at the news and, he said in a phone interview yesterday, “I took off my helmet and bowed to the crowd.”
Auto racing is in Reid’s DNA. His grandfather, Michael Van Houten, uncles Michael, Jr. and Brad, and his two older cousins, Kendall, 17, and Chase, 16, are all racers. His father Stephen is the track announcer at Riverhead Raceway.
Reid, a Pulaski Street Intermediary School fifth-grader, started racing in 2021 at age 8.
Racing, the young champion said yesterday, “clears your mind.”
“It gives you good thoughts.” He paused to consider what that means to him.
“Racing is, like, where I find peace.”
He enjoys the concentration, being hyper-focused, his mother Meredith said. “He has ADD, so just being all-in for racing and only concentrating on just the car in front of him — I think he likes that feeling. I think it brings him a feeling of calm,” she said.
Reid likes the thrill of it, too.
His young racing career has not been without thrills — or scares. In his first season, in the summer of 2021, Reid, then 8, had a “hard crash” at Waterford Speedbowl in Connecticut.
After that, Reid wasn’t sure he wanted to continue racing, his mother said. “He really struggled with anxiety,” Meredith Halpin said. “But he kept saying ‘I want to do it. I want to do it.’ And he wanted to push through,” she said. His family supported him, encouraging him to “just do the best you can,” she said. “We didn’t focus on winning. And slowly but surely he got his confidence back. And here we are,” she said.
With his first championship under his belt, Reid is looking forward to more racing. He’ll keep racing in the same division until he’s 16 or 17, he said. Then he plans to race in the legends division. And he’s even eyeing a professional career.
Meanwhile, he enjoys math in school and playing football as an offensive lineman.
Reid thanked Mike Rommeney, who runs the Bandelero division, and his crew chief, Chevy Rommeney, and his parents for all their support.
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