What does two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion Will Power have in common with 21-year-old series newcomer Sting Ray Robb?
The two drivers have arguably the most raceresque names in motorsports.
For Robb, it all began when his parents, who are avid Corvette fans, named him after the “Sting Ray.”
From that moment, Sting Ray Robb was destined to drive race cars.
“Along with that, I grew up at Corvette club meetings, drag races, autocross events back in Idaho,” Robb told SPEED SPORT. “My parents were just hobbyists who loved cars and wanted to go fast, just like I grew up to do.”
Sting Ray Robb watches qualifying from his pit box. (IndyCar photo)
There was another early indicator that Robb was destined for a career in motorsports.
“I actually took my first steps at a Corvette club meeting, which is kind of funny,” Robb said. “That was all I knew until the age of about 5.”
With cars on his mind, it was only a matter of time before racing became the next step.
That moment clicked for Robb as a preschooler while watching one of the world’s most successful action-sports athletes.
“When I was around 4 years old, I watched Travis Pastrana jump a go-kart into a foam pit,” Robb recalled. “When I saw that, I was like, ‘Oh, that’s what I want to do.’”
Robb’s motorsports journey began when he received his first go-kart on his fifth birthday.
“We went to races locally in Star, Idaho,” Robb recalled. “Then, pretty soon we were going to Tri-Cities, Washington, Salt Lake City. Vancouver, Canada, was a place that we went to shortly after that.”
Before blinking, Robb became fully immersed in go-karting, traveling the world and pursuing every opportunity.
“By the time I was 9 years old, we’d already been traveling to Italy and back, so it was a pretty quick progression in the early stages of my karting career,” Robb explained. “I think that my parents just saw in me a level of focus that maybe some of the other kids didn’t have, and desire to be there.
“That’s not to say I was over serious. I was playing football in between go-kart races. But at the same time, we were gone 42 weekends a year in my early karting career, which is quite a bit when you’re a young kid playing sports and going to school and doing all that.”
Robb’s natural ability showed out in go-karts, as he earned multiple championships.
In 2015, Robb captured the Triple Crown in the Canadian-American Karting Challenge, where he topped the West Coast, Florida-Atlantic Tour and the East Coast series.
One year later, with a stacked karting résumé, Robb began the transition to cars.
“I did the Skip Barber Karts to Car shootout and got the Bryan Herta scholarship, so I could keep doing that for the offseason,” Robb said. “So I was doing Skip Barber and karting at the same time and got myself into some dirt cars, did some dirt modifieds.
“I did the Bondurant Racing School in Corvettes. Then I did open-wheel racing, obviously, with Skip Barber. … Also, I did the ARCA West Series.
“I wanted to do as many things as possible, that way I could figure out what direction I wanted to take,” Robb continued. “Baseball, basketball, all those other sports, they have a straight ladder system to whatever that top level is. But in racing, we always describe it as shattered glass.
“You can start here and then go this way, or that way or this way or that way, and then come back and do this and then go back over here,” Robb added. “There’s no straight path to any top level of motorsports. So we had to figure out first off, ‘What was I going to enjoy the most? What was I going to want to spend my time in?’”
Keyword: Robb: The Climb To The Top