Most race car drivers start learning to race at a young age, moving up the ranks as they grow up. For Nick Anglace, though, that wasn’t the case.
Anglace has proven to be as successful as the drivers around him since coming back to racing after a seven-year gap in 2018.
Anglace started karting in 2009 at seven years old before taking a seven-year hiatus two years later. For most drivers, that would be a death sentence for their careers, and the possibility to make it back to racing after leaving for seven years is almost none. Anglace, though, made it happen. In 2018, he started racing again at the New London-Waterford Speedbowl in the SK Light Modified Series.
Anglace’s time at the Speedbowl was mixed as he was learning how to race again. He often got involved in other people’s wrecks, which hindered his growth as a driver at times. But he made it work, finishing fourth in the standings that year.
After that lone season at the Speedbowl, Anglace made the move to Stafford Speedway in Stafford Springs, Conn.
During that 2019 season, Anglace once again raced in the SK Light Modified Series and finished in seventh, with three top fives and 14 top 10s.
The following year, Anglace again finished in seventh with three top fives, but this time with 10 top 10s in 13 races.
In 2021, Anglace went backwards in the standings, finishing in 13th, but he showed a lot of improvement, winning not once, but twice over the course of the season.
The first came on May 21, while the second came not long after on July 30.
“My father raced at Stafford and Waterford since 1991 and he did it all those years, not a lot of full seasons cause he would have to take care of me with football and everything else, but in the times that he would run he’d finish second and third a lot but ultimately never won,” Anglace said. “He had a fast car every week and he just never won, so when we got that first win in May that was a big deal because our name was finally in the Stafford record books as a winner.”
In 2022, Anglace was once again winless, but he did improve in the standings, finishing in 11th with four top five placements and seven top 10 placements.
In 2023, Anglace went backwards in the standings, but had a career high in top fives with six. In 2024, he did it again, improving to seven top 10s while moving up to ninth in the standings.
In 2025, Anglace took a massive jump, moving up to fifth in the standings while winning three races. This time, he had a secret weapon.
Anglace added the University of Connecticut as his main sponsor in 2025 due to a LinkedIn message he sent to UConn’s Director of Brand Partnership and Trademark Management, Kyle Muncy.
“It was a cold LinkedIn message of just like, ‘hey, this is the idea I have, I would love to talk to you more about this’ and he’s like, ‘how [does] next week sound,’” Anglace said. “When we had those meetings, I kept it under wraps, I didn’t talk to my friends or my family about it [because] I was trying not to get my hopes up because I heard a lot of no’s at that point.”
The partnership between Anglace and UConn came back in 2026 and Anglace wasn’t just good or great; he was dominant.
He won eight of the 21 races but finished second in the standings by just 26 points, and UConn was with him through it all.
The sponsorship has helped him get recognized at Stafford Speedway, which is 15 minutes from the Storrs campus.
“I think it’s been better than anybody expected,” Anglace said. “There’s been a lot of people that come up to us at the tracks to tell us their kid went to UConn, or they went to UConn many years ago and they love the race car which is really nice.”
Anglace even takes the UConn car to Football games at the Rent sometimes, and the crowds are massive.
“When we go to the football games, it’s always a huge crowd,” Anglace said. “When we went to the first football game, we brought the car to, there was a line for like eight hours of constant people sitting in the car and taking pictures that I didn’t have a minute to eat.”
Anglace added that he wasn’t sure people would be interested in seeing it and he was surprised by the turnout.
But some things haven’t worked out for Anglace and UConn.
The pair were supposed to race in the NASCAR Truck Series at select races in 2026, but that fell through.
But even then, the success that both UConn and Anglace had in 2026 was fantastic and they look to partner up even more in the future.
As for the 2027 season, Anglace said his plans are not concrete yet, but there is something in the works and the announcement will come in the following weeks on his Facebook.