Some of the world’s fastest drivers will compete Sunday at Kansas Speedway in the Road Runner Indy Turbo 300.

With the roar of the engines just around the corner, I figured it was a good time to try to find out what makes race-car drivers tick. Since I’m not nearly as competent a driver as the pros — downright lousy, some might even say — I sought the shortest drive possible to carry out my mission and made the half-mile trip to Free State High without incident.

A pair of Free State teachers each once had a big-name NASCAR driver sitting in his classroom. Sunday’s race is an IndyCar Series event. Close enough. Skilled, fast drivers are skilled, fast drivers. Besides, Danica Patrick wasn’t in town yet, so why drive all the way to the Speedway?

The first stop was in the Free State library, where teacher/soccer coach Jason Pendleton was doing research on Internet safety. In the early ’90s, Pendleton was teaching at Stockdale High in his native Bakersfield, Calif. Pendleton coached NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Casey Mears on his freshman football team and taught him in his Spanish class the next year.

“As a linebacker, he was great because crashing into stuff is not that big a deal to him,” Pendleton said. “Even though he tried to avoid it on the track, he sought it out as a linebacker.”

Race-car drivers tend to come from towns where most collars are blue.

“The mentality of most of my brethren in Bakersfield is a good, tough, hard-working, scrappy mentality,” Pendleton said. “The way you do things is you sharpen up your elbows and get in there and mix it up, and that was the type of kid Casey Mears was at the time.”

Mears, nephew of four-time Indy 500 winner Rick Mears and son of former off-road racer Roger Mears, “had that background, and you knew he had the economic resources to pursue it,” Pendleton said.

Clint Bowyer, also a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver, grew up in Emporia. So did Free State teacher/basketball coach Chuck Law. He had Bowyer in his U.S. history class at Emporia High in 1997.

“His parents owned a towing company, as I recall, so being around cars was in his blood,” Law said. “He’d been racing dirt bikes since he was barely old enough to walk. That mentality, that aggressive, daredevil mentality, was always something that was part of his makeup.”

Bowyer keeps Law glued to his TV set.

“I used to watch the occasional NASCAR race with Richard Petty and Cale Yarborough and all those old-school guys,” Law said. “I watch every weekend now because of Clint. Emporia, Kan., hasn’t churned out a lot of real famous people, short of Dean Smith and William Allen White. That town has really rallied around him. It’s a blue-collar town, and it really gives that community a sense of pride.”

Despite his viewing habits, Law doesn’t claim to be a gearhead with a whistle.

“I have a senior in class, Brett Reineman, who wants to work on a NASCAR pit crew, so he’s kind of my go-to guy,” Law said. “So whenever there’s anything on TV, when they talk about something like bump-drafting, I go to him.”

So Law has had a go-to guy all year, after all. Who knew?