Patriot Motorsports 6796 West "D" Avenue, Kalamazoo, MI 49009

Kalamazoo, MI

    When I was in High School I dreamed of the day when I would be able to race stock cars and maybe run the Daytona 500. As I grew older and had a family I realized that all my dreams would never come true. So I settled for racing the short tracks in my home state. I did pretty good for a guy who didn't have a lot of money or come from a racing family. With the talent God blessed me with, and with some help from family and a couple of really good friends I was able to win three Stock Car championships as well as one Go-Cart championship.

    These accomplishments were done on a very limited budget, and with very little equipment. These accomplishments were done with a couple of other guys that had similar desires that I had, and some sponsors that trusted what I said and took a chance on sponsoring myself and my team. The sponsors were not easy to get, but compared to the difficulty other teams had in getting sponsors we were pretty successful. I approached everyone with honesty and would only promise what I knew we could deliver. We did not approach the conventional businesses to partner with us, but looked outside the automotive community and had real good success. Other teams soon took our lead and started having success in getting sponsors as well.

      Now I am considered one of the "Old Timers" in the sport. I still build very competitive race cars, always finish well in the feature event and people still come to me for help. The only thing different is that the cars are more expensive..... real expensive and we go much faster than before.

    My son Daniel now wants to race cars and from the times out at the go-cart track I can see that he may have the talent to be a good driver. Daniel is now 16 and we have begun building him a car to race in the pure stock division at kalamazoo Speedway.  Due to a freak accident in the pits at Kalamazoo Speedway I was severely injured while helping a friend on his car. The result was two broken legs and a lot of time off away from the things I needed to complete during the summer of 2005.

    The legs are healing well, and although I have taken some time to try my hand at racing again, I see that there is still more healing to do. The results of me returning to racing were not what I expected as my return debut resulted in one of Galesburg Speedway's rookies running into the side of the car I was driving for Ed Burgen. This resulted in our right rear tire getting cut down and damaging the 69 car's front nose piece to the point the car could not be driven. I have decided that when I return to racing it will be in my own car.

    I'm not ready to quit racing altogether. At 48 I'm still in good shape with excellent reflexes.  This showed while helping my friend Tom Crooks in 2004. I won the dash, heat and feature in a car that I had never driven before and on a racing surface that was as slick as grease.

    Some day I'll stop racing, or maybe slow down a lot, but not yet. I'm having too much fun to quit. For those of you who are wondering, I'm not about to retire yet, but before I do, you'll have another Hensley to worry about and this one will have the advantage of having the "Old Man" be his crew chief to help out.

    Keep it between the ditches.  I hope to see you were the stars come out (a new one is soon on the way!).

                                                                                Roger Hensley
                                                                                Patriot Motorsports