One of the region’s legendary NASCAR families will have a track reunion Friday night at Colorado National Speedway.
Jerry Robertson, who dominated the speedway’s premier division in the early 2000s, will come out of retirement and compete against his 75-year-old father and 28-year-old son in a three-generation race.
“It will be cool to make history like that,” said Jerry Robertson, a three-time CNS late-models champion. “It may have been done before, but nobody has a record of it. NASCAR is aware of what we’re doing, and they’re as excited as we are.”
The race was added to the schedule as a late-models make-up event, so all of that division’s competitors will be participating.
Odie Robertson and his grandson, Darren, are full-time competitors at CNS and stand 13th and third, respectively, in the points standings. Jerry, 52, is borrowing a competitor’s car to cement the family legacy at the paved oval in Dacono, about 20 miles north of Denver.
“Growing up watching (Jerry) race, you’re thinking your dad is Superman, and his father taught him everything he knows,” Darren Robertson said. “So it’s going to be a lot of fun to race against them.”
Jerry Robertson hasn’t driven at CNS since 2005, when he dabbled in the national NASCAR series and gave control of his local team to Darren. Odie is racing regularly at CNS for the second consecutive year since moving back to Colorado from North Carolina, where he lived to help support Jerry’s career.
“I probably won’t be in contention with them,” Odie said. “I’ve been racing this (series) all summer, nine or 10 races. We’re just going to add Jerry to the group do something that’s never been done.”
Odie and Jerry have experience at the highest level of NASCAR. Odie made a Cup Series start at Riverside (Calif.) International Raceway in 1974. Jerry competed in a 2005 Cup race at Phoenix International Speedway and spent considerable time in the Tier II series now known as Nationwide.
Odie, Jerry and Darren already make up the only three-generation winners of the Challenge Cup, CNS’s prestigious double-points-paying, season-ending event. Darren won the Challenge Cup last year, Odie captured it in 1975 and 1980 (when the track was dirt), and Jerry won the big race in 1996, 2002 and 2004.
Odie finished ninth at the 2013 Challenge Cup and planted the seeds about Jerry’s one-race comeback with the help of friends.
“My dad is the one who thought of this, who knew about the rarity of it and inspired us to get it done,” Jerry said. “There’s a lot of people excited about this. I just hope I don’t disappoint them. It’s been almost 10 years since I raced out there, a lot has changed, so getting used to the line and how the car handles might be tough.”
Jerry is more concerned about his father’s welfare than his own.
“He seems to disagree because that’s how he is — he is hard-headed — but I try to tell him his bones aren’t as strong as he used to be,” Jerry said. “His head and neck — he just recently agreed to wear a HANS (head and neck support) device. He’s hit the wall, but not terribly hard. He thinks he’s invincible. But I keep telling him everything deteriorates with age.”
Not everything. His energy remains high.
“Crazy. He has more energy than most people I know,” Darren said of his grandfather. “He never stops.”
Jerry will be driving the No. 75 car at CNS, with Darren in his typical No. 11, and Odie in No. 21, his number from the 1970s.
Mike Chambers: mchambers@denverpost.com or
Three-man attack
Three generations of one family will compare skills in a late-models race Friday night at Colorado National Speedway in Dacono. A look:
Odie Robertson, 75
Won the inaugural CNS Challenge Cup in 1975, a year after making his big-league Cup debut in California.
Jerry Robertson, 52
Original driver for Denver-based Furniture Row Racing and a four-time divisional champion at CNS.
Darren Robertson, 28
Won the 2013 Challenge Cup to follow his father and grandfather as a winner of CNS’s biggest race.
Mike Chambers, The Denver Post
