In June, recent off of an eighth-place end within the NASCAR Xfinity Sequence race at Portland Worldwide Raceway, Parker Kligerman went for a run within the mountains. He’d spent years chasing the highest ranges of motorsport, reaching them, falling out of them, then climbing them once more. Throughout that point, he’d have waves of feelings about how his driving profession would finish. When morale was low, he’d assume: “Rattling it, you in all probability ought to cease chasing this.”
However it wasn’t till this yr, amid a gradual Xfinity Sequence profession and a top-10 run within the sequence championship, that Kligerman reached the highest of that mountain and had a second of readability.
“I used to be similar to, ‘I feel I am good,’” Kligerman informed Motorsport at Phoenix Raceway, his last race as a full-time driver. “And that was it.”
A pair weeks later, Kligerman, 34, talked to Scott Borchetta, his staff proprietor at Huge Machine Racing. Borchetta was “very supportive,” they labored out the main points of Kligerman’s departure, and the staff signed 23-year-old Nick Sanchez for 2025. Kligerman introduced the tip of his full-time driving profession in September, three months after that post-Portland run.
When it got here to the ultimate race of the season in Phoenix, Kligerman wasn’t visibly unhappy. He stated he principally felt grateful and completed, particularly after assembly followers over the weekend who thanked him for his presence within the sport.
“Like, I did this,” Kligerman stated. “I received right here. Despite the fact that I am not racing for a championship at present, and I have not been as profitable as I wished, I do really feel completed to have completed this — and completed it at a extremely excessive stage, for actually storied organizations — and labored with among the greatest within the sport. The child who noticed this on TV at 9 years previous someway made all of it work.”
Parker Kligerman, Xfinity 2013
Picture by: Motion Sports activities Images
Kligerman’s profession has been a zig-zag. He ran his rookie season in NASCAR’s fourth-tier sequence, ARCA, as a 19-year-old growth driver for powerhouse staff Penske Racing. That yr, he received 9 of 21 begins.
Within the decade that adopted, Kligerman raced each NASCAR nationwide sequence — Vehicles, Xfinity, and Cup — for main groups like Penske, Brad Keselowski Racing, and Kyle Busch Motorsports, in addition to underfunded ones like Swan Racing. The quantity of races he ran fluctuated every year, and he supplemented drier spells with different work, resembling being a presenter on NBC’s NASCAR broadcasts.
However for the previous two years, Kligerman had a gradual experience within the No. 48 automobile for Huge Machine. He introduced his retirement with particular phrasing: “I’ll now not be pursuing racing full-time.”
“The rationale I stated ‘Now not pursuing full-time’ was that the whole time, each second was: ‘How do I get to full-time once more?’” Kligerman informed Motorsport. “Each single low season, each single yr, from the primary day I did TV till the Huge Machine Racing deal, there can be like three or 4 offers that might be within the air. Like, ‘I’ll get this, I’ll get this.’ After which it might fall by means of.”
Kligerman’s journey — and last day at his job — is relatable. Folks usually discover that means and self-definition of their work, as a result of they spend so many hours of their lives doing it. Leaving a job could be unsettling, even when there’s freedom on the opposite aspect.
Parker Kligermann, NBC SN
Picture by: Motion Sports activities Images
However skilled driving isn’t a typical job, or perhaps a typical sport. Youngsters with assets start karting at kindergarten age, they usually want time and monetary assist to have a shot on the massive leagues. From that age onward, day without work is simply time misplaced to different drivers climbing the ladder.
“I by no means considered [racing] as a profession,” Kligerman stated. “It was similar to, ‘That is life. That is what I do, that is what I’m going after, and that is what I need to do.’ For any driver, if you’re climbing the ranks, it is similar to: ‘What’s subsequent? What’s subsequent? What’s subsequent? What’s subsequent?’ Then, when you get to the highest, there’s nowhere above that. You begin to see the place you stack up, and also you begin to get this concept of, ‘Hey, am I going to be the most effective ever?’ ‘Okay, I am not.’
“Now it’s important to have a reckoning, as a result of no one will get into this considering you are not going to be the most effective there ever was. You begin to see what your weaknesses are, and see for those who can work on being higher.”
Kligerman stated he by no means felt “settled or calm” about motorsport, as a result of he continually wished extra from it. Then, on trip earlier this yr, he went every week with out serious about racing. He turned to his buddy and stated: “That was bizarre.”
“How do you’re feeling?” the buddy requested.
“It was form of cool,” Kligerman responded.
“To chase this factor, it is a 200-mile-per-hour, what’s-right-in-front-of-you endeavor,” Kligerman informed Motorsport. “You may’t take into consideration the rest. It’s a must to have a hearth inside that is like: ‘That is all that issues.’ The second I had the sensation that there have been different issues that mattered to me, I used to be like: ‘Okay, that is it.’”
Parker Kligerman, Huge Machine Racing, Huge Machine Spiked Coolers Chevrolet Camaro
Picture by: Rusty Jarrett / NKP / Motorsport Photos
Kligerman received three races within the third-tier NASCAR Truck Sequence and 10 in ARCA, and he’s at all times wished so as to add an Xfinity win. In October, Kligerman led late within the Xfinity race on the Charlotte Motor Speedway roval, driving in a fever to remain forward of a area stacked with road-course specialists. He needed to win to advance to the subsequent spherical of the NASCAR playoffs, and he was about to try this.
Kligerman ran out entrance for 12 of 72 laps late within the race, charging towards the white flag. (The white flag indicators the final lap. In NASCAR, a warning earlier than the white flag leads to a restart. A warning after it ends the race.) Kligerman was inches away when a warning got here out.
His lead vanished, and the sphere stacked two-wide for a restart.
“I knew it was shut,” Kligerman stated. “However then, I got here across the nook, they usually had an enormous display. I see [my crew chief] Patrick [Donahue] come down from the pit field. I am like: ‘We received! We did it!’ I positively cried.
“Then they have been like: ‘We did not get the white.’ I simply went again within the zone. I used to be like: ‘Alright bud, simply received to nail this restart. Two extra laps.’”
Kligerman nailed the restart and received forward of the sphere. However not lengthy after, eventual winner Sam Mayer caught him and made contact. Kligerman stated the contact damage the automobile, inflicting him to fall again and end sixth. Even with out the win, he’s “completely happy about it.”
“That’s the greatest 10 laps I’ve ever pushed, beneath essentially the most immense strain,” Kligerman informed Motorsport. “That is my favourite race I’ve ever pushed.
“I inform folks the good factor in regards to the NASCAR playoffs is that in no different type of racing will you be put in a race that is like: ‘Hey, it’s important to win this to go on.’ It is solely in NASCAR, and I hadn’t skilled that but. I would seen it from the TV aspect, and I am like: ‘That have to be essentially the most insane feeling.’ There is no greater strain you are ever going to be beneath in a race automobile than if you’re main and you will need to win that race. You have to put all of it on the road and carry out, and we did.”
After the near-win in Charlotte, folks requested if it made Kligerman need to preserve going. He informed them: ‘If one consequence may have an effect on my choice, it wasn’t very highly effective.’”
That’s as a result of his choice was greater than outcomes. It was a realization that he ought to sit again and revel in life extra.
“I feel, positively, I’ve taken racing approach too significantly and let it eat at me,” Kligerman stated. “My life has been measured by an 8-by-11 sheet of paper each time I step right into a automobile. You are measured on the way you conduct your self, the way you work together with the staff, the way you do the [racing] sim[ulator], the way you do practices, the way you check. The whole lot issues.
“Everybody makes use of the phrase ‘sacrifice,’ however you do. There’s no one who does this who’s not going to inform you it takes actually every little thing you might have, each waking second, to do that.”
Race winner Parker Kligerman, Henderson Motorsports, Meals Nation USA/Tide Toyota Tundra
Picture by: Gavin Baker / NKP / Motorsport Photos
Kligerman isn’t completely certain what’s subsequent. He’s going to proceed his tv profession, movie for his YouTube channel, and attempt to run bucket-list races just like the Rolex 24 at Daytona Worldwide Speedway. However by way of subsequent yr, Kligerman stated: “We’re letting the universe present.”
“Hopefully, I will be profitable at what I am doing subsequent,” Kligerman stated. “I’m somebody who in all probability values profession development approach an excessive amount of. I positively have grown up quite a bit on this, and I feel within the final two years, I’ve discovered quite a bit about myself and my capability for strain. That provides me numerous consolation on this subsequent section, matter what I do. It is like: ‘Hey, you’ve got completed it beneath the very best attainable strain there’s. You carried out.’ And that makes me very excited for what’s subsequent.”
In Phoenix, Kligerman stated he couldn’t be unhappy about retiring, as a result of he received to race for therefore lengthy. Plus, it was “so uncommon and ridiculous that it ever even got here collectively within the first place.” He stated his childhood self would marvel why he was retiring now — and why he didn’t win extra races — however that he’d be proud to know the grownup model of Kligerman turned much more like his racing idols than he ever thought he would.
Kligerman additionally needs different folks to know: In the event that they’re serious about chasing a motorsport dream, “they completely ought to.”
“It is an irrational recreation that is mindless,” Kligerman stated. “There are tens of hundreds of thousands of causes you should not do it. But when you’ll find one purpose to, then go. There’s a lot to be discovered in doing one thing like this, that requires a lot of you in so many alternative capacities. Irrespective of how profitable you’re, you’d have the ability to look again at chasing one thing like this and realize it was value it, it doesn’t matter what the success stage was.”
