Although Palmiter can tout the title of race car driver, it's just one of his passions. In addition to racing stock cars, he's an avid welder and started taking classes toward an associate degree in industrial manufacturing technology when he was a sophomore in high school. And if that weren't impressive enough, he's traveled from middle schools to high schools to community colleges, inspiring students--the future of America--to follow in his footsteps.

"At career days at school, there was always a firefighter and a policeman and an ambulance worker, but there was never a welder," says Palmiter. "It made me want to tell kids about these great careers in manufacturing that they didn't know about."

Full speed ahead
Palmiter started racing when he was 7. As soon as he was behind the wheel, it was obvious he had a knack for high speeds. He started out with go-carts and quickly graduated to bigger cars and bigger tracks.

"I learned quickly how different it was to drive on asphalt," Palmiter says, comparing the experience to the days of driving a go-cart on a dirt track. "I came off one of the corners and ended up wrecking the car. It wasn't really bad, but it was bad enough to where we couldn't fix it ourselves."

The incident led Palmiter to what would be his second calling in life: welding.

"We had a friend in Jacksonville, Fla., who said that he'd help us fix [the car] to get me back on the race track," he recalls. "He ended up having to cut the front clip off of the car and weld it back on. He got the clip done and he was tacking it together and looked at me and said, 'Well, do you want to weld it up?' But I was only 10 years old and told him that I didn't know how to weld. But I leaned over his shoulder a little bit, which one of the guys in the shop noticed."

Palmiter ended up getting a 20-minute tutorial on MIG welding. The rest is history.

"From there, I was hooked," he says. "It wasn't hard for me to catch on. It was easier than English class. I don't know if I was a natural, but I was interested, so I took the time to practice."

Road worthy
Palmiter's demeanor is that of a confident young adult. But he doesn't let it go to his head.

"I don't really see myself too much as a celebrity," he says. "I see myself more as a normal kid that just happens to drive a race car." FFJ