Area 51 Racing came together about 6 years ago, when Doug Gibson and Brent Devoti united to start the race team. Each of them had been racing in various classes, primarily oval (asphalt and dirt). He and they guys were supposed to go and watch the drags in Baytown but they had the weekend's mixed up, so they embarked on a different adventure. Here’s Brent’s recap of how Area 51 started to take sha
pe: “I told the guys we are away from the ladies we're going to get into something. So, at that point I remembered putting the roofs on a dirt track years ago. The track was battleground speedway. We pulled up not knowing anything, we ask about a key ingredient BEER, lol. We were told 10 bucks bring your own cooler and we were off. An hour later we had a cooler full of cold ones and watched every race. I told the guys I'm going to do this racing thing, I was told ‘you’re crazy’. After 3 months preparing a car, I was on the track. To this day I've never been that afraid for my life. I had the slowest car on the track. I can remember Chad and Barnyard passing me like I was sitting still and said someday I'll be that fast. After a ton of hard work and people like Barn's and Chad helping me, I became competitive. I've raced Eco Stocks, Purse-stock, Street stocks and now Pro Truck's. Even nowadays, I'm nervous and I can't eat on race days. It's amazing how this whole racing thing works. At times you hate it but you can't live without it. Think about when you're a kid in elementary school. It's the same thing, you would sit there in class and count the minutes until the open the doors and you get to play with your best friends but in the corner of your eye you see that one person who wants to wreck your world. Our racing weekend is the same thing. It's so complicated at times but in the end we all pull together and work as a team. When discuss his racing career, Doug recounts: “I never thought I would ever get to race on a circle track, ever, and even when I did I didn't think it would last more than a season. Winning feels great, losing feels awful but doing it with the family that we have put together, it makes the hard times not so bad. My dad has been one of the biggest reasons I've been able to do this and his support and always being there to help us has been unwavering. I just hope he's proud of what we've been able to do with little to no racing budget. I can only thank everyone for all the help, big or small, it all matters and is very much appreciated”
04/17/2025
