It’s a Friday morning at the Waterford Hills Road Racing course in the Clarkston area, and Nolan Allaer is explaining his race strategy to me as he steers his family’s 2024 Cadillac CT5 V in Velocity Red around the track.
Allaer, 24, isn’t just another driver out for a spin ahead of the weekend’s Vintage Races, he’s a race car driver intent on breaking the track record of 59.4 seconds before the event wraps up.
When you’re racing against somebody, you’re looking for the spots where you’re better, where you can overtake the other driver, he said. You’re always analyzing.
“It’s a game of chess at 150″ mph.
All the while, you’re also weighing other issues – tire wear and managing your fuel, for instance.
The driving part should be automatic.
“It’s supposed to be subconscious. You’re supposed to be able to just not think about the actual driving and think about, ‘how am I going to be better on every lap? Where am I better than him in some of the race strategy?’ ” he said, as he continued whipping around the track’s corners in this 668-horsepower machine.
That Saturday, July 25, Allaer would accomplish what he set out to do in a 2007 Panoz DP01 Champ race car owned by his grandfather, J. Lewis Cooper, when he managed a 56.969 lap. That he broke the record wasn’t a surprise − he’d done so in a practice lap on Friday − but the time improvement over the record was notable.
But then Allaer, who was born in Detroit and lives in Grosse Pointe Woods, knows this track well. It’s his home track, a distinction he shares with others in his family, including his father, Rob Allaer, and Cooper, a race car driver, who, at 83, stopped racing just a year and a half ago. Cooper, who was to be surprised during the weekend with a section of the course named in his honor, began racing in 1965.
Nolan Allaer has driven twice in the Detroit Grand Prix and has made his mark in many other races. He also likes to highlight his Detroit roots, even appearing with Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs in an ad for Faygo, which is a key sponsor. He’s an Indy NXT driver, slated for a race in Portland in August, and also competes in GT4 America, a co-driver series.
Growing up, he spent plenty of time around Waterford Hills, even cleaning cars for tips. Racing wasn’t a given, however.
“I’d clean the cars and socialize, but I never really thought I’d ever get the opportunity to drive, because I didn’t start driving until I’d turned 18 and it kind of happened as a bit of a fluke,” said Allaer, who was involved in karting and later honed his skills in sim racing.
His parents gave him what was expected to be a one-off experience at the Waterford Hills driving school as a high school graduation gift, but he performed much better than expected.
“What we didn’t realize was he was sitting there absorbing this,” said Rob Allaer, who spent years in TV sports production around Detroit and later worked for the Tampa Bay Lightning.
The family had moved to Tampa, Florida, for that job with the Lightning but eventually found their way back to Grosse Pointe Woods full-time (summers had been spent in Michigan). Nolan Allaer graduated from nearby University Liggett School and later went on to Miami University of Ohio to study mechanical engineering, but he didn’t stop racing, even taking a year off from college to compete in England.
He said he’d love to one day race in the Indy 500.
Rob Allaer, 56, said he used to think his own race wins were a pinnacle for him. That was until his son eclipsed him, he said, recalling a second-place finish to Nolan in 2023.
“I was crying like a baby coming around that final cool-down lap,” he said. “Watching your kid is something special.”
Eric D. Lawrence is the senior car culture reporter at the Detroit Free Press, and he also writes about recreational vehicles, boats and bikes. Send your tips and suggestions to elawrence@freepress.com. Become a subscriber. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Racing is family affair for Detroit-born Nolan Allaer
Reporting by Eric D. Lawrence, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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By Eric D. Lawrence, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
