At age 16, Alex Prunty started his own professional racing team.
Nineteen-year-old Lomira, Washington resident Alex Prunty is a third-generation rice car driver revving up for his fourth competitive season behind the wheel – now as a member of Team E3 Racing. Of course, racing is in his blood. He’s the seventh member of his family to hop into the drivers’ seat since Grandfather Doug Prunty ran his one and only season in 1961.
Grandpa Doug’s career might have been a short one, but it spawned a dynasty, as all five sons, Daniel, Dusty, David, Dennis and Dale eventually began racing careers of their own. Now, grandson Alex is burning up the tracks and making a name for himself with his own racing team, Alex Prunty Racing. It didn’t take long. Prunty raced his first season in 2009 in a donated 1990 Nissan Stanza XE that had been turned into a racecar. Despite a host of engine and electrical issues, Alex and his father, Dan, got the car in running condition and Alex drove it to his first feature win in just his sixth race the nearby Slinger Super Speedway in Slinger, Wisconsin.
Alex would finish his first competitive season with five feature wins in the Slinger Bees division at Slinger and a fifth-place points position. He also ran the Red, White and Blue Series at Wisconsin International Raceway (WIR), capturing two feature wins in the three-race series. The next year, he would lock down the Slinger Super Speedway Slinger Bees Track Championship – the family’s 11th. He finished the 2010 season with six feature wins and four fast qualifier awards at Slinger, plus a feature win at WIR.
Alex Prunty, a Team E3 Racing winner, is a third-generation racer.
Prunty since has moved up to the Super Late Model division thanks to the generous donation of a wrecked car from Pete Wiedmeyer, a longtime family sponsor. Wiedmeyer had originally bought the car from Prunty’s uncle, Dennis, and wrecked in the 2008 Slinger season opener. The car spent the next two years in his shed until it traveled back to the Prunty camp and, like Prunty’s first donated car, was resurrected into a sleek, strong racing machine. In that car, Prunty finished the 2011 season second in point standings and landed the Rookie of the Year title.
Today, Prunty is excited about starting the 2012 stock car racing season, but also spending time off the track and in the classroom at Moraine Park Technical College, where he’s studying Engine Research and Development. No doubt his studies will make him an even tougher competitor to beat on the tracks. E3 Spark Plugs is proud to be helping him do just that this season.
