- December 4, 2025
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Whenever I ask youth athletes about their dreams for their respective sports, the answers are so common they’ve become predictable.
Football players want to win Super Bowls. Swimmers pine after Olympic gold medals. Golfers want to play on the PGA Tour.
What those kids are actually saying is that they want to keep playing their sport as long as they can before life gets in the way.
The unfortunate truth is that those dreams will never materialize for most, but Braden River High alum Conner Morrell is an outlier.
Morrell was signed to Bill Rose Racing to compete in the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Cars as the 15th full-time racer in the national sprint car tour.
Morrell said life as a full-time driver is what he always pictured for himself, and even though the 21-year-old is just getting started, he’s fully committed to the pursuit, with no backup plan in sight.
When Morrell isn’t bending around dirt tracks at 100-miles-per-hour, life can be quiet.
He spends much of his time behind the wheel of a 26-foot motorhome his grandfather Keith Morrell lent him, driving from track to track while listening to alternative rock, punk rock or grunge tunes.
Aside from the radio, Morrell keeps busy with his girlfriend, Alyssa Marano, and their two dogs, Hazel and Ginny. Food can be hard to prepare, so the two often stop at local grocery stores and Marano prepares salads while Morrell drives.
To keep the time on the road interesting, the two have often diverted from the suggested route to see monuments, such as when they took a five-hour detour around two races in North Dakota in late May to see Mount Rushmore.
There’s precious little time when Morrell doesn’t have to be on the road, but when he isn’t he makes the trip back home to Bradenton.
That’s where he was for the Fourth of July weekend when we caught up for a conversation. Though he was on vacation, Morrell still couldn’t hide from car troubles.
He was held up getting to our interview by issues with his brakes, which when explained to me, sounded like rocket science.
Sleeping in a motorhome and driving several hours each week can wear on anyone, but it’s all worth it for the way Morrell feels when he’s racing.
Some people like to say racing is a series of endless left turns, but it’s much more physically demanding than many understand.
Morrell said he typically only sweats in a sauna, but he is drenched in sweat by the time he’s done racing.
That’s mainly due to the heavy-duty, protective gear he has to wear.
Morrell dresses in long socks, long underwear and a long-sleeved shirt made of Nomex — a heat and flame resistant material — and then puts a three-layer suit on top of it, as well as a head sock and helmet.
To add to the heat, he sits in an open-air sprint car with the engine blowing hot air on him.
When the race begins, there’s also the possibility of a car crash. One of Morrell’s worst wrecks came in April of 2023 at 34 Raceway in West Burlington, Iowa.
Morrell and Alex Bowman collided as they were about to make a turn and Morrell’s car flipped twice in the air before it crashed down.
The footage of the crash is hard to watch, but Morrell said he wasn’t fazed beyond bruises from the seatbelt.
Despite having reason for concern when he’s racing, Morrell said he hardly has time to think when he’s on the track.
“It’s straight tunnel-vision and all adrenaline,” he said. “You don’t think about anything.”
Morrell was one of seven rookies signed to race in the World of Outlaws this year.
He currently ranks 15th in the driver points list — last among the full-time drivers — but ahead of 257 part-time drivers.
He nearly had his first win at Oshweken Speedway in Oshweken, Ontario on May 15, but was passed by David Gravel after leading the race for 12 laps.
That second-place finish earned Morrell a season-high $12,000. He followed it up with a fifth-place finish at Attica Raceway Park in Attica, Ohio nine days later for his second top-five finish of the season.
Despite that success, Morrell said finishing second is “the worst thing in the world,” which immediately brought me back to Ricky Bobby’s catch phrase of “If you’re not first, you’re last” from Talladega Nights.
Morrell has made $46,550 from 27 races this season, and while he still wants to win one, he’s doing better than some people might have thought.
“A lot of people doubted me and said I was going to drop off the tour by July, but we’re halfway through July and I’m still here and still kicking,” he said. “It’s just those keyboard warriors. They love to do it. I think it’s funny what they say sometimes. I get a kick out of it. I’ll scroll through the comments and some of them are actually pretty creative.”
Morrell said he’s satisfied with how this season has gone even though he would like to win a World of Outlaws event before it’s over.
For a local guy making a living off of his favorite hobby, I think he’s living life better than most.
