Stephen Nasse is an American professional stock car racing driver. He currently competes part-time in the ARCA Menards Series East, driving the No. 09 Ford for Jett Motorsports. He also competes in various super late model events. He is nicknamed Classy Nasse.
Racing career
A third-generation racer, Nasse started his racing career in the go-kart ranks at age four. He won a national karting championship. He grew up watching racing at his hometown track Suntime Speedway. As a 13-year-old, he moved up to Florida's FasTrucks. Nasse had his first late model win as a 14-year-old in the 2009 New Smyrna Speedway's World Series of Asphalt Racing. He and his family team eventually made two NASCAR K&N Pro Series East starts in 2012. Nasse was running in the Pro Cup Series in 2013 when he caught pneumonia, keeping him off of the track for two-plus months. After he recovered, Nasse ran in the Pro Cup Series' successor, the CARS Super Late Model Tour, teaming with DLP Motorsports. In 2015, Nasse spun leader Anderson Bowen on the first lap of the Rattler 250 at South Alabama Speedway. Nasse took responsibility for the incident but called it an accident, claiming that Bowen took an irregular line into corner entry, braking earlier than Nasse was expecting. A year later, in the 2016 Snowball Derby, Nasse wrecked William Byronunder caution in retaliation for an on-track incident; Nasse later called out Byron, Johanna Long and Todd Gilliland for moving up by writing checks and not moving up by talent. in 2019 Nasse won the 2017 Southern Super Series championship, and followed that up with an early 2018 championship in the World Series of Asphalt. In April 2018, Nasse punched rival Donnie Wilson while Wilson was still in his car after an on-track incident at Five Flags Speedway. At the Snowball Derby in December 2018, Nasse spent $5000 to hire what he thought was a Roush-Fenway Racing development pit crew for the race but had myraid problems with the crew during the day, losing spots on pit road and eventually returning to the track twice with a loose wheel, ending his day in a crash. Nasse, infuriated by the smirks he saw on the rented pit crew's faces, charged the crew after exiting his car over an estimated $40,000 loss. Running with Jett Motorsports in 2019, Nasse won the super late model portion of Short Track Nationals at Bristol Motor Speedway in May. He also finished first in the Snowball Derby in December, but was stripped of the win during post-race technical inspection for having titanium piston caps in the braking system, something that was explicitly disallowed in the rulebook. Nasse claimed that his former brake supplier, PFC Brakes, told technical inspectors to check the brakes, and the claim was not immediately refuted by PFC employees, although the company later released a statement denying involvement. Nasse also blasted PFC for playing favorites within their customer base. In early 2020, Nasse was asked by his team owner to run the ARCA Menards Series East race at New Smyrna Speedway in an aim to get into the driver development program arena.
Other racing
Nasse has said that he originally aspired to be a high-level NASCAR driver, but that the organization lost its luster for boring racing, empty stands and vanilla personalities. As an alternative, Nasse said that he would like to run in a World of Outlaws Late Model with personalities like Scott Bloomquist.
