Michelin The Alley asked a number of ALMS drivers and a few team principals about how they got started in racing, big breaks and favorite racing memories. Here is what we found:

What did you race? Where?

Derrick Walker
“Never have raced, always preferred to work on the cars. Oh! – and couldn’t drive fast enough might have been a factor.”

Guy Smith
“I raced karts initially in the UK winning the British championship five times and then I started to race worldwide driving for an Italian manufacturer.”

Jan Magnussen
“At a little motorsport club in my hometown of Roskilde, Denmark. The track that we used to race motocrossing was taken away from us because railway tracks had to come through that area. The only other option for me was go-karts.” (pictured above at his home track in Denmark)

Dominik Farnbacher
“I raced the 2001 Formula BMW Junior racing Series in Germany. My trainer and mentor back then was Jörg Mueller – who I have competed against in ALMS.”

Tommy Milner
“For Christmas one year, my Dad entered me into a three-day school at KRC Karting School in a shifter kart. They also had a racing series that was essentially a spec shifter kart class. Where I grew up on the East Coast, there were really no proper sprint go-kart tracks. So we would fly to California or Las Vegas for races.”

Colin Braun
“I was about five years old; I started racing quarter midgets at ovals around Texas. At the time, that was the only place you could race at that age. You had to be eight to race go-karts, but I could do quarter midgets when I was five.”