Brothers Trevor and Zach Sise are among two of the top young racing talents in the east Tennessee area. And to demonstrate that, the siblings each brought home a checkered flag last Saturday night at 411 Motor Speedway in Seymour, Tenn. Trevor picked up the win in the Limited Late Model main event while younger Zach was triumphant in the Sportsman class feature.
While there may be a certain degree of sibling rivalry among the two, they also serve as each other’s biggest fans. And that was no more evident than when each was on the track racing for a win last weekend. Since the two weren’t racing in the same class, each had the opportunity to watch and cheer for the other on that special night.
Trevor Sise won Saturday night’s Limited Late Model feature at 411
“That was pretty cool,” Trevor recalled of the dual triumphs in an interview with InsideDirtRacing.com. “He won his race then as I was sitting there waiting to go out I was thinking it would be pretty sweet to go out and win this race. I was starting on the pole so I just sat there and cleared my head and went out and pretty much dominated that race.”
The younger of the two echoed his brother’s sentiments.
“I was hoping he could pull it off,” Zach said. “It was pretty cool. It’s always much better when you do it with your family. You enjoy it a whole lot more. Trevor helps me out a lot on everything.”
Zach Sise won Saturday’s Sportsman feature at 411
Racing for the Sises is very much a family affair. The team, led by father Calvin, relies on a number of others offering their talents to make evenings like last Saturday possible.
“Dad was almost in tears,” Trevor remembered of the family’s most recent trips to victory lane. “He was pretty tickled. He told us that might not happen very often for both cars to go out there and win on the same night. It takes a lot of people to come and help in the garage during the week. We’ve just got a checklist and we go over one car at a time and work our way around then we just work on tires toward the end of the week.”
The brothers not only root for each other, but each also plays a role in the other’s success by working on the cars and offering advice when it is needed.
“He got everything ready setup wise when he first started and learned all that,” Zach said of Trevor’s time spent learning the finer points of Dirt Late Model racing. “Now, my car is starting out fast because we already know some things.”
And perhaps the greatest contribution Trevor can make to his brother’s racing career is to serve as a mentor for the 16-year-old junior at Knoxville’s South Doyle High School.
“He taught me a lot of stuff,” Zach explained. “He was hard on me at first when I was getting started because he knew I had the potential.”
Trevor relishes the role he plays in his brother’s career and his life.
“It’s pretty cool to watch him grow as a driver as he matures and gets better,” the 21-year-old South Doyle graduate declared. “I like helping him get better because I like to see him succeed in everything he does.”
But Trevor also joked that, “Me and my dad say that I did all the learning for him. He just gets to hop in and go fast.”
The Sise brothers have had racing in their blood since they were very young. Both started in go-karts at early ages and have now progressed to the bigger, more powerful Late Models to compete on the high-banked clay ovals of east Tennessee.
“I was happy to see him get into a car because when he was racing go-karts it was hard to be able to go watch him at the kart track,” Trevor explained. “It’s nice to be at the same place and it’s nice to see him succeed.”
In all likelihood, there will come a day in which the duo lines up for a Late Model feature to race against one another in the same division. And both a looking forward to that time.
“You’re always competitive but you treat him different than other competitors,” Zach pointed out. “You’d rather him win than somebody else. You want to beat him, but if you can’t win, you want him to win.”
Trevor hopes that day of racing at the same time will come sooner rather than later.
“That’ll be sweet. It’ll be sibling rivalry then,” he said with a chuckle.
Both winning machines in Victory Lane along with drivers and crew members
