Sebastian Arias: 'My goal is to be the first Colombian driver to become a NASCAR champion'

By Jeff Gravley, WRAL sports anchor/reporter

Charlotte, N.C. — He wasn't born in Colombia, South America, thinking he would be a race car driver. But 20-year old Sebastian Arias has worked to fulfill that dream.

"When I was like 5 years old, I used to watch Juan Pablo Montoya when he was in Formula One," Arias said. "Me and my dad used to wake up at 5 in the morning just to watch his races. I told my dad, 'I just want to be a race car driver.'"

Arias started racing when he was 11. Whatever had four wheels and an engine was just fine. But the first racing machine he owned was a Legends car. It came at a steep family price led by his father.

When Arias first told me of the financial sacrifice, I had to ask for a repeat. "He did what," I asked?

"He sold the house," Arias said. "To buy me the Legends car."

So any pressure to succeed when your dad sells the house to get you a race car?

"Just a little bit," a smiling Arias said. "But he (dad) said, just do what you have to do."

After many laps in his home country, Arias was discovered by NASCAR’S diversity team and was soon connected with NextGen Motorsports, based just outside Charlotte.

"There are representatives from NASCAR that are there looking for talent and opportunity," said NextGen general manager Dee Jetton. "They give them all of the choices and opportunities of how they might make it into the United States."

"Before I came here I had an opportunity to race go-carts in Europe," Arias said. "But at the time Montoya was racing NASCAR. So I told my dad, 'I want NASCAR really bad. Please!'"

So Arias moved from Colombia to Miami. Since then, he has raced in the 602 series with hopes of joining the K&N series leading to the truck series and then the ultimate, the NASCAR circuit.

Arias isn't shy about his vision.

"My goal is to be the first Columbian driver to become a NASCAR champion," he said with conviction. "I want to continue the legacy that Juan Pablo Montoya left."

Montoya only won twice on the NASCAR Cup Series, but he had a major impact on a young boy in South American, planting dreams in the mind of Sebastian Arias.