Sports

Actions

From college football to the Navy and now NASCAR, meet Jesse Iwuji

Posted at 7:12 PM, Aug 09, 2019
and last updated 2019-08-09 19:12:50-04

BROOKLYN, Mich -- Jesse Iwuji is certainly living a unique dream. Iwuji played college football for the Naval Academy from 2006 to 2010 before seven years in the Navy. Now, he's in the Navy Reserves and is also chasing a much different dream: race car driving. The 31-year old Texas native is now in the NASCAR Trucks Series and is racing this weekend at Michigan International Speedway, with the race on Saturday at 1:00 pm.

"These are people I've watched on TV racing and now I'm actually racing against them," Iwuji said.

For Iwuji, his favorite part is motivating others to pursue their dreams.

"The best part has been being able to inspire people to go after their goals and dreams," he added, "because now they can look at me and say, 'he's a normal guy just like you and me, there's nothing different about him' but the only difference is I had a goal, I had a vision, I went after it and didn't let anything stop me."