Martinsburg, West Virginia Native Races Stock Cars While Representing His Home State

Christian Rose currently drives the #42 car in the ARCA Menards Series.

Martinsburg, WV. (NS) – Christian Rose began as a baseball player, and is now a racecar driver.

The Martinsburg, West Virginia native said he is pursuing his racing dream all while representing where he grew up.

“We have West Virginia State Tourism as our primary sponsor, and I can’t thank them enough. From everybody that believed in me as a racecar driver and a person to represent my state. Not only is it a dream come true for me to drive a racecar, but to represent the state where I’m from is just, altogether, you could not have asked a better sponsor on my shoes, so I’m very thankful for them,” said Rose.

He said stock car racing requires training just like baseball.

“When you’re in a car that is 140 degrees, in the middle of the summer, it wears on your body. You’re up on the wheel, you’re working your biceps, your chest the whole time under stressful situations. Your heart rate is anywhere from 120 to 135 (beats per minute). So, I do a lot of intense heat training in the gym. You see a lot of these guys, they ride bikes for miles on miles on miles and run miles and miles and miles,” Rose explained.

He added that the sport is successfully reaching a wider range of people.

“You have a lot of female racers now in the sport and it’s a great thing to see. I think our sport needs to have that, and we need to have diversity and that’s where NASCAR is going. It’s not just females. If you look at the total diverse perspective, we have Michael Jordan as a team owner now, we have Pitbull as a team owner, we have Floyd Mayweather as a team owner, Emmit Smith is now a team owner in NASCAR,” explained Rose.

Rose, who is fighting Dyslexia while learning to drive a racecar, has seen success since starting in 2018, and is looking for an opportunity to drive in NASCAR’s top 3 series in the future.