Justin Harper: A 500 Sprint Car Tour Iron Man

Since its inception in 2022, the 500 Sprint Car Tour presented by Auto Value Bumper to Bumper Parts Stores has seen a handful of drivers compete in every race. Of that handful, only a few have competed in every race including both Little 500 Sprint Car Classics ran in that time frame. One of those drivers, a true 500 Sprint Car Tour Iron Man, is named Justin Harper.

Harper, a native of Denver, Indiana, has seen his consistent performances pay dividends as he currently sits in 8th place in the 500 Sprint Car Tour Championship Standings. The 22 year old racer for TCJ Racing has a career best finish of sixth with the 500 Sprint Car Tour. That finish came at Toledo Speedway in the Father’s Day Classic. Week in and week out, Harper has had consistently strong performances and does so in a manner that is very calm and collected as he truly enjoys every second of every lap he turns.

“The reason I love and enjoy the 500 Sprint Car Tour is because it gives off that family atmosphere,” Harper proclaimed. “It is basically the same group of people running at all the races and we are at the track to compete against one another but we are also there to have a good time. Everyone is friendly and willing to lend a hand and help out if they can”.

Justin Harper began racing competitively in 2007 at the young age of five years old after testing quarter-midgets until he was old enough to officially compete. He began his racing career in Junior Novice and then graduated to Junior Honda Class after placing sixth in Junior Novice points standings. In 2008, he finished in tenth place in the State Championships Points for Junior Honda Class and made the decision to switch to dirt racing. He competed for two years with Junior Sprints before purchasing his first 600 Micro Sprint. At the age of nine years old, he began running in the restrictor class where he stayed for four years before moving into Outlaw Wing and Outlaw Non-Wing competition. In 2015, Harper finished in second place in Outlaw Wing points. After four years of competing with both Outlaw series, Harper was given the opportunity to return to pavement racing in a pavement sprint car and hasn’t looked back since.

“It’s bringing back pavement racing,” Harper said about the 500 Sprint Car Tour. “Up until about five years ago it seemed like Anderson Speedway was the only place to run. Now we are traveling to different states and different tracks, some of which I never thought I would have raced at…I know the tour didn’t come about until last year, but when it did, they had more races than we thought we could have attended. It was very exciting to see.”

In his time away from racing, Harper works at his local Walmart store as a Coach. For those unfamiliar with Walmart’s terminology, a Coach is a position of management that oversees a team of associates and leads. When he is not leading a group of people or competing for race wins, Harper spends time with his family, rides four-wheelers around his property, plays pool, and enjoys a summer swim. As the 500 Sprint Car Tour is currently in their longest break of the 2023 season, Harper will continue to enjoy his hobbies outside of racing while still preparing to get right back behind the wheel as he has for every 500 Sprint Car Tour event to date.

Justin Harper, along with the other stars of the 500 Sprint Car Tour presented by Auto Value Bumper to Bumper Parts Stores, will return to non-wing pavement sprint car racing when the series returns to action on September 9th at Lorain Raceway Park. In what will be only the second trip to the state of Ohio for the Indiana based series, Lorain Raceway Park will play host to the countries top short track racers in their third of three “new” racetracks on the 2023 schedule. Harper performed well at the other two “new” tracks on the schedule with his career best finish of sixth at Toledo Speedway and a 12th place finish at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway. He will look for another career best finish, or perhaps a podium finish or better, as the unknown of a new track acts as an equalizer for an already tightly contested field. Fans can watch Harper and his fellow competitors when they tackle Lorain Raceway Park by tuning in live to MAVTV on FloRacing.