After a shaky start in her sophomore season, Katlynn Leer seems to be finally taking off.  

Leer began racing in karts at the age of 6. She grew up around the sport and attended dirt track races with her dad, Joe, since before she could walk. Once she got her legs under her, she strode into the Iowa-based Powri wingless sprint car series. And at the age of 18, she's starting to run.

After advancing as far as she could in the karting world, winning 28 of the 42 events in her final season of 2010, it was time to move into midgets and minis and then onward to sprints.

Leer's father, an ex-racer himself in Indiana and Iowa, initially got her into racing. For Joe, sprint cars -- both winged and non-winged -- have always been king.

"My dad used to race himself when he was high school," Katlynn said. "He's originally from Indiana, and he moved to Iowa his senior year of high school. And he raced in Indiana and then got his own car in Iowa."

Katlynn's path is currently mirroring her father's. She moved into her own car for the 2017 season, which coincides with the end her high school senior year and the start of college.


 
"I'm balancing racing with school right now," she said. "I moved two hours away from home for school so I go to class during the week and then on the weekend, if we race, I go home and help my dad get ready and we leave to go racing."

Many young racers bond over balancing school with racing. While everyone wants to make it and find success in the field, the sport is expensive and fickle.

"I just want to be able to make a career out of it," Leer said. "I don't really care about what series or what car I just want to continue racing."

The 2017 season has had a lot of ups and downs for the young racer, starting with her first midget race in the Chili Bowl Nationals. She's been racing the full Powri sprint series and has recently seemed to have found her stride. In her last five races, Leer has been a contender in the field, winning the hard charger award twice and one heat race. She's also netted a top five and earned a high point driver of the night honor.

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"This year has definitely been a struggle, and I haven't been the smoothest," she said. "But the last five races, my dad and my aunt and I have been figuring out the car and the chassis more and finding a setup that I like. We've also been going to new tracks and figuring out the tracks pretty well.

"It's been a struggle figuring everything out and putting it together. It took a lot but we pulled our heads together to figure out what needed to happen."


After starting on the pole last weekend, Leer made an early mistake that forced her to retire early on lap eight of her first 410 wingless sprint. It was a crushing blow for a woman who had a chance to win. 

"It was all on me this past weekend," she said. "It was a driver error, and we probably could've gotten the win. The team is doing the right things. We're finally on the right path. It just has to come together now. No driver errors and hit the setup consistency two nights in a row."

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