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They have been called young guns but they are more like young rockets. Some so young they could be called baby rockets. These young rockets strap in, fire up and roar out in all venues leading to NASCAR.

Modern drivers must start young to get experience crucial to advancement into pro ranks. They're called rookies the first year in any sanction and in NASCAR they must display a bright rookie stripe on their rear bumper. But most rookies at top levels are far from novices. They have acquired skills to get a license to race and honed those skills so they can win. A lack of wins or top finishes is a road block that even abundant resources will not remove.

Brad Coleman, an 18-year-old young rocket with mature experience, seems to have swapped a ladder to success with a kicked-up escalator without stalling on the bottom floor of his potential.

A condensed history of his swift rise starts with a kid in a go-kart discovered by Lemans driver Price Cobb in 2001. That year Coleman traveled with Toyota Atlantic Race team in CART and the following year in karting he won 42 percent of his races on the way to a SKUSA Red River Regional Season ROTAX Championship. At 14 he became the youngest American driver to ever receive a professional open-wheel racing license and practiced repeatedly. In 2005 he set a world record at Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona with youthful teammates, Colin Braun and Adrian Carrio under the tutelage of driving coach Ross Bentley.

Coleman moved to Martinsville, Va.,to continue his training for the 2005 NASCAR Dodge Weekly Series and get his high school diploma at Carlisle School. While there he completed a relentless testing schedule in his Late Model Stock Car at South Boston Speedway. That same year he teamed with Colin Braun to set a Grand American record as the youngest drivers to ever pilot a Daytona Prototype in a race. The next season Coleman joined BREWCO Motorsports in an ARCA/NASCAR Busch driver development program. At 18 after a sensational 2006 rookie season in the ARCA series winning at Kentucky Speedway, he signed a 17 race schedule for Joe Gibbs Racing in the No. 18 NASCAR Chevrolet for the 2007 Busch Series.

At the beginning of the 2007 season, Coleman found time in his fast-paced world for a Zoomster interview bfore the ARCA 200 at Daytona International Speedway.

"That's what it takes, consistency and a lot of nerves of steel."
Brad Coleman

Brad Coleman, No. 94 JGR Chevrolet

Can you comment on being chosen by your team in ARCA and beyond?
"I'm running for Joe Gibbs racing. I'm a Busch Series driver. We're doing 17 races this year and a full series next year. Joe Gibbs is definitely a great team. I look up to not only the way they run their team but their lives in general. They're great people. What they have done with Denny Hamlin is just amazing. It's definitely inspiration."

Can you tell us a little about your personal history?
"I was born and raised in Houston, Tex., and I live in Charlotte, NC. When I was 14 I moved to Virginia to start racing stock cars and all that stuff. Then I moved to Kentucky to be at Brewco Motorsports and now I'm back in Charlotte to be with Gibbs. I'm 18 and I've been racing since 2002."

What do you attribute to learning to race so fast?
"Vidoe games. I still do them. It's a good way to pass time too."

You're 18 and you're racing in NASCAR. Do you know what you have that that gives you the ability to get that far so fast?
"I hate tooting my own horn, but what people tell me is I'm real smooth and consistent. We were just at Vegas and we had telemetry on the Busch car and all my traces were matching up and everything, my throttle input, my steering. They said they really liked that so I guess it's good."

If you could put a fan in that car with you in a pack, what would you say to them about expectations?
"Oh man. I don't know if I'd be talking to them. I'd do everything I could do to scare them. Put them real close to the wall on the high side going into the middle three-wide. I've actually never done it before so it's a difficult comparison."

Do NASCAR champions have common traits and abilities, and if so could you identify a few?
"Oh wow. They definitely do. Champions definitely have common traits and abilities like Kevin Harvick and Carl Edwards for the Busch Series. They're very consistent always up there in the front. Just consistent, consistent. I think Harvick finished almost all the laps last year just a couple laps down in just a couple races. That's what it takes, consistency and a lot of nerves of steel."

Do race car drivers ever stop learning?
"No. Never. Just like any profession you do. If you play guitar, you play football, you never stop learning."

Additional Comments:
"Go to www.bradcoleman.us."