One of the top bandolero drivers in the country hails from Pascagoula. He’s 11 years old.
Folks on race tracks around the country, and especially in the Southeast, know him simply as Cole Trickle.
A smart, quick-to-learn driver that has an uncanny knack for crossing the finish line before his counterparts do.
His real name is Nicolas Denton, an 11-year-old who assumes his alter ego only when arriving on the scene of a track he is soon to dominate.
The name comes from Tom Cruise’s character in the 1990 film “Days of Thunder.” Denton’s first name is already shortened to “Cole” and it was too easy not to add the last name from the leading character in his favorite movie.
From Pascagoula, Denton takes his “Days of Thunder” inspired Mello Yello No. 46 car to Atlanta and Florida and leaves his competitors watching from behind as he races over the checkered finish.
Denton has logged 13 races this year and stood on the podium every time. He’s been on top at first place nine times and is riding a seven-race winning streak.
Before he became one of the youth racing scene’s most feared drivers, he needed a big break and a bit of outside help.
From the beginning
Denton took one look at the TV his father was watching and caught a glimpse of the stock cars racing across the screen when he was just 2 years old. From that point forward, Denton knew what he wanted to do.
A couple of years later, a red-suited man from up north got wind of Denton’s aspirations.
“For Christmas I asked Santa for a go kart and he brought me a Mellow Yellow 46 go kart from the movie ‘Days of Thunder,’” Denton told the Sun Herald.
Denton raced go karts until it was time to move up to the bandolero cars. That’s when a random, non-racing video Denton had uploaded to YouTube went viral.
It was a video of Denton receiving a personal escort through Disney’s Hollywood Studios by a pair of Stormtroopers and it has received over 14 million views. The family monetized the video and used the funds to buy Denton a new bando car.
The bandolero is similar to a race car, just much smaller and they top out at 70 miles per hour. Many popular NASCAR drivers got their start in a bando car, including Chase Elliott, Joey Logano and Bubba Wallace.
Once Denton got into one, the switch flipped and he was off to the races.
Top of his class
The sun was long gone and Denton was in his own zone. He started in second after qualifiers but had overtaken first in time for a caution reset.
He then went untouched over the final 10 laps and crossed the finish line without trouble from any of his competitors. If you had an ear in the car, you probably would’ve heard him singing Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now,” a victory jam from one of his favorite bands.
It was the first of five straight wins at Citrus County Speedway Winter Nationals in February, a stretch of dominance not common to the track.
“It was really fun because it was my first ever win at Citrus County Speedway,” Denton said. “It was my first ever win at circle track Winter Nationals.”
He also set the track record that week for the fastest time in a bandolero car fitted with Hoosier Tires.
It was an impressive week on the track for a family that hasn’t invested in the sport quite on the level of some of Denton’s competitors.
“For a Mississippi kid, what they call a ‘mom and pop operation’ meaning we’re not on a big team that pay a couple of hundreds of thousands of dollars every year for our child to race,” Tina Denton, Cole’s mother, said. “For a kid from Mississippi to win it was a really big deal.”
He does it without any official sponsors, though he’s open to collaborating with Coca-Cola on his Mello Yello car. Denton is a Friends of Jaclyn driver, an organization that brings awareness to children with brain tumors and other cancers.
What’s next
It’s much too early for individual season rankings to be revealed, but if they were released today Denton would be at the top of them by a wide margin thanks to his long stretch of wins.
There’s still plenty of driving ahead, though. The family will make their way to Atlanta Motor Speedway this summer, where they will temporarily relocate, as Denton makes the track his home for the rest of the season.
Denton has nine races at the speedway from June 2 to July 7, events that will make up the meat of his 2022 season and include eight Thursday Thunder races.
“I want to be top three in the nation and win Thursday Thunder,” Denton said. “But if I don’t win Thursday Thunder then I’m happy with top five.”
He finished fourth in the month-long event last year on his way to a second place finish nationally in the INEX bandolero division.
Once Denton has outraced and outgrown the bandit the division, the next designed step would be to move on to the outlaw division.
But Denton’s success and reputation in the scene as an impeccably clean driver, could allow him to skip the new age group and move on to a new vehicle altogether.
As a kid who looks up to NASCAR greats Jimmy Johnson and Kyle Larson and hopes to one day get his pilot’s license so he can eventually fly himself to NASCAR races, Denton has a strong shot at anything he chooses to tackle.
This story was originally published March 15, 2022 at 12:08 PM.
