Former Tampa resident Nolan Allaer pivots from hockey to higher speed

ST. PETERSBURG — In a previous life, hockey owned his heart. Nolan Allaer spent the bulk of his childhood honing his skills as a left defenseman, scraping pucks off the wall and protecting his goalie at all costs.

“And it was my entire life,” said Allaer, who was born in Michigan but raised primarily in FishHawk Ranch while his dad produced Lightning TV broadcasts. “I wanted to play in the NHL. I trained for it and made sure I was always in the upper end of my teams.”

That pursuit included extensive travel competition, stints with club teams from Brandon to Ellenton to Lakeland, and a devout allegiance to the Lightning, who crushed him by trading Marty St. Louis — his favorite player — on his 12th birthday.

But another passion lurked, one steeped not so much in Allaer’s heart but his blood. Or more specifically, bloodlines.

Reared by a family of race-car drivers, Allaer had navigated his first go-kart at age 4 and reveled in the sport for most of his prepubescence before pivoting to hockey. Then, right around the time he was set to get a driver’s license, simulated racing became a craze. As a virtual driver, he flourished.

In barely a half-decade, he has progressed from simulators to the streets of downtown St. Petersburg.

Allaer, who turned 22 on Tuesday, is embarking on his rookie season with Indy NXT — IndyCar’s equivalent of Triple-A baseball — and will make his street-course debut in the series’ inaugural 2024 event Sunday morning.

“He’s moved pretty quick up the ladder, but I also think the Indy NXT cars kind of suit his driving style, and I think that he’s adjusted to the speed really quick,” said former IndyCar driver Alex Barron, a longtime advisor to Allaer and twice a top-10 finisher at the Indy 500.

“Unfortunately with the street courses, you don’t get a lot of track time before you go into qualifying and the actual race, but I think he’s super excited about it, I think he’s pretty humble about it.”

In hindsight, Rob and Beth Allaer probably should’ve seen this whirlwind evolution coming from the middle of their three sons.

A fourth-generation driver, Allaer’s great-grandfather raced hydroplane boats. His maternal grandfather, Lewis Cooper Jr., still competes in the SportsCar Vintage Racing Association at age 81. An uncle also races. And when Rob joined the family, he quickly caught the racing bug.

Such was the environment in which Allaer was reared. As a tyke, he’d roam the paddock of the local track where his family competed with a bottle of Windex in hand, offering to wash windows for a buck or two.

“We always joked he’s a track rat, that’s what we called him,” Rob said.

He raced in the Florida Karting Series as a grammar schooler until other interests — namely hockey — prevailed. In addition to his extensive travel-team schedule, Allaer also wrestled, ran track and participated in diving at Tampa Prep, which he attended as an eighth- and ninth-grader.

He got the simulated-racing itch at roughly the same time the family moved back to Michigan his 10th-grade year. Upon his high school graduation, Rob offered to pay to send him to a local driver school, try his hand in authentic race-car driving and seek a competition license. It just happened to be the same course where Rob held the track record in his F2000, open-wheel winged car.

“On his fourth lap of driver school, the first time he was in the car ... he went faster than any of of his instructors ever did, and he ended up going two-tenths of a second off my record,” Rob recalled. “So my wife and I looked at each other and were like, ‘Uh-oh.’”

From there, Allaer began dominating races at the local and regional levels, displaying a savvy belying his experience.

By 2022, he was competing in the Formula Race Promotions F1600 Championship Series with Team Pelfrey, scoring two wins and nine podium finishes as the top rookie in the series. The following year, he raced for Ammonite Motorsports in the British Racing and Sports Car Club (BRSCC) series in Europe.

In the prestigious BRSCC Formula Ford Festival — the series’ signature event — last fall in Kent, England, Allaer won his heat race, becoming only the fourth American to achieve the feat. Following that performance, advisors suggested he try to earn a spot in Indy NXT with HMD Motorsports, which had a car available.

He tested in Sebring for two days under varying weather conditions, and earned the seat.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Allaer, who remains enrolled at Miami (Ohio) University, where he’s pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering. “Surreal is the perfect word, and it’s the word that I keep using. ... We never imagined we’d be in this position this year, and I’m so thrilled that we did and I truly believe it’s the right call. It’s just an honor, it’s just an absolute honor.”

While the turns and tight straightaways of the St. Petersburg course will represent a literal learning curve, Barron believes Allaer’s passion and extensive sim-racing background will allow him to successfully transition to the Indy NXT series.

“I think that he’s pretty good at going out on the racetrack and trying to slow everything down because of the speed of the car,” Barron said. “The car’s a little bigger than what he’s driven in the past. I think he’s good at evaluating on slowing it down in order to speed up, taking what the car’s going to give him.”

Regardless of what fate gives him Sunday, the ride is sure to be surreal.

“The expectation is hard to say,” Allaer said. “I know I’m new to the series and I’m the least-experienced driver on the grid, but we’ve had some very successful testing and I’m thrilled with how I’m getting along with car, so I just want to do the best I can and enjoy the experience and just get the most out of it that I can.”

Contact Joey Knight at jknight@tampabay.com. Follow @TBTimes_Bulls