Having completed a record-setting season of racing, teenage sports car driver Tristan Nunez is not resting during the off-season.
Instead he is helping cheer up sick children and actively campaigning to alert his peers to the dangers of distracted driving.
Nunez, who turned 17 at the end of October, capped a phenomenal rookie season of racing—11 wins, 12 poles, and seven lap records, plus becoming the youngest driver ever to win a sports car championship—with a successful pair of weekends in England, where he beat 120 of the world’s top young drivers to win the Walter Hayes Trophy.
A few days later on Nov. 11, the speedy teen was giving high-speed rides around Homestead-Miami Speedway to pediatric cancer patients from Baptist Children’s Hospital and Miami Children’s Hospital as part of the Southern Automotive Media Association “Rides ‘n’ Smiles” event.
Nunez and several other drivers donated their time to bring a few minutes of excitement to children whose days might otherwise might be bleak. About 170 children showed up and were treated to hot laps in a variety of exotic cars including the Performance Tech Motorsports IMSA Lites DP02 (in which Nunez won the championship) and the team’s ALMS LMPC Oreca 09 (which Nunez might be driving next season.)
