Davey Hamilton Jr.

Davey Jay Hamilton Jr. (born March 15, 1997) is an American racing driver from Idaho who competes in pavement sprint car racing. He is the son of former Indianapolis 500 competitor Davey Hamilton.

Hamilton has raced mainly midgets, sprint cars, and in the Stadium Super Trucks. He made his Indy Lights debut in 2016.

Racing career
Hamilton started his racing career in karting at his local karttrack near Star, Idaho. The third generation racing driver made his debut in the USAC Midgets. In 2011 Hamilton finished eleventh in the Ford Focus Midwestern Pavement division. For 2012, Hamilton improved to a sixth place in the series.

In 2015, Hamilton won the King of the Wing's Western Sprintcar Series. Hamilton began testing an Indy Lights car with McCormack Racing in 2015. It was initially announced that he would compete in the full 2016 Indy Lights season with the team but the entry did not materialize until the season finale at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca where Hamilton finally made his series debut. He won the King of the Wing championship in 2016.

In 2017, Hamilton joined the Stadium Super Trucks, racing Always Evolving's No. 75 at the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. At the Beijing National Stadium round, Hamilton won the race, but did not take the joker lane and was disqualified. He also drove in one NASCAR K&N Pro Series West late that year.

On April 30, 2018, after a rookie test at Kentucky Speedway, Team Pelfrey announced that Hamilton would be competing in that year's Freedom 100 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and that they were working to add more appearance in 2018 and 2019. His career was put on hold from 2019 to much of 2021 following his assault arrest. He returned to racing in October 2021 in the USAC Silver Crown Series and won in his second race sprint car race with Kirk Morgan's Morgan Motorsports team. The performance promoted him to a full season with the team in 2022. Hamilton won six races, as well as the Southern Sprintcar Shooutout Series championship in 2022.

He also planned to race for that year's SST championship, but a ramp landing in the season opener at the Grand Prix of Long Beach caused him to reaggravate a T4 spinal fracture that he suffered in a sprint car crash in 2017. Although the SST schedule was dropped, he continued his oval racing.

In 2023, Davey Hamilton, Jr. won his first career USAC Silver Crown race at Gateway in St. Louis, Missouri with Legacy Autosport.

In 2023, Hamilton promoted the inaugural Open Wheel Showdown at the Bullring at Las Vegas Motor Speedway The $50,000 to win Winged Sprint Car race was the highest paying of all-time for the discipline and also included Midgets and Super Modifieds competing.

Personal life
In February 2019, Hamilton was arrested in Florida on charges of false imprisonment and aggravated assault after breaking into his ex-girlfriend's hotel room and holding her at knife-point. He had been struggling with concussions for months prior to the incident that he sustained in race crashes. Hamilton was sentenced to five years of probation. While his driving career was on hiatus, he started a series of businesses and became an ambassador for the Brian Hamilton Foundation, which helps those with criminal records become entrepreneurs.

In 2023, Davey Hamilton, Jr. explored a career in DJing as part of music duo 'Elusive' which released one original song and a remix

Open Wheel Showdown
In 2023, Hamilton founded Open Wheel Showdown, LLC and became promoter of the Open Wheel Showdown, with title sponsor Riskon360! Hosted in the Las Vegas Bullring and broadcast live on Speed Sport Tv. The event featured three classes of pavement open wheel cars: Midgets, Winged sprint cars and Supermodifieds, and was the highest-paying pavement sprint car race purse in history, with $50,000 to the winner and some of the highest paying purses for midgets at $10,000 to win and for supermodifieds at 5,000 to win. The event was the first time a winged sprint car has driven on the Las Vegas Bullring. Canadian Driver Jason Blonde set the all-time speed record at the track and fastest time at 116.089 miles per hour and lap time of 11.629 seconds

Notable entrants included Hamilton's father and grandfather Davey Hamilton, Sr. and 82-year-old Sprint Car Hall of Famer Ken Hamilton, 11-time and 2 time Indy 500 competitors, respectively, ss well as former Indy NXT drivers Arie Luyendyk, Jr. and Kyle 'O Gara among others. Honored dignitaries included Indianapolis 500 winners Arie Luyendyk, Sr and Buddy Rice, Indycar Las Vegas winner and team owner Sam Schmidt, two-time Little 500 winner Bentley Warren, and NASCAR Hall of Fame driver Mark Martin. Canadian sprint car champion Aaron Willison won the main event and NASCAR Modified Tour champion Bobby Santos III finished second, with Hamilton rounding out the podium.

7-time USAC Silver Crown champion Kody Swanson won the midget feature and Dave Danzer won the supermodified feature.

In 2024, Hamilton announced that Irwindale, California would be the new location for the event in November 2024, with the same classes and payout, later expanding to two events, adding Las Vegas back as the first of the two locations. Open Wheel Showdown, LLC also expanded to offering media services, provided photography and videography services to drivers such as former NASCAR Cup driver Ryan Newman and NASCAR Modified champion Bobby Santos III.

American Open-Wheel racing results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position, races in italics indicate fastest race lap)

Stadium Super Trucks
(key) ( Bold – Pole position. Italics – Fastest qualifier. * – Most laps led. )

1 Although Hamilton led the most laps, his disqualification resulted in the bonus points being awarded to Bill Hynes.

NASCAR
(key) ( Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led. )