PROFILER: Meet Jesse Iwuji

Jesse Iwuji

Jesse Ekene Iwuji (born August 12, 1987) is an American professional stock car racing driver and officer in the United States Navy Reserve.

He currently competes in three racing series for Patriot Motorsports Group, a team which he also owns: the ARCA Racing Series in the No. 34, and the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East and West in the No. 36.

Iwuji attended the United States Naval Academy, where he joined the school's college football and track and field teams. On the former, he was a free safety for the Navy Midshipmen. He later served as a Surface Warfare Officer (SWO) in the United States Navy from 2010 to 2017.

Iwuji attended Hebron High School, where he was a letterman twice in football and three times in track. On the football team, he was a two-star recruit. During his junior year of high school, Iwuji was contacted by the Naval Academy and was offered a scholarship to the school.In addition to continuing his football career at Hebron (where he was named first-team all-district in his senior year),he attended the Naval Academy Preparatory School before heading to the Naval Academy.He formally enrolled at the Academy on June 30, 2005.

Although he played linebacker in high school, he was a free safety on the Navy Midshipmen football team.He played on special teams during his freshman year in 2006 before starting two games at safety in 2007, but missed six games due to ankle injury. In 2008, he played in the Army–Navy Game and the EagleBank Bowl. Iwuji was a backup to Kwesi Mitchell in 2009, though he saw action at strong safety in the season opener against the Ohio State Buckeyes due to Emmett Merchant's injury. Iwuji also competed on the track and field team, where he ran the 60-meter, 100-meter, and 200-meter dashes in addition to the 4 × 100-meter relay.

Iwuji graduated in 2010 as a Bachelor of Science and became a surface warfare officer. After working as a football coach at the Naval Academy Preparatory School, he entered active service. Iwuji worked in mine countermeasures with Mine Countermeasures Crew Exultant and was deployed to Bahrain in 2012.He was later deployed on the USS Comstock, a ship whose name would later appear on an Xfinity Seriescar when it was featured on Darrell Wallace Jr.'s No. 6 Ford Mustang in 2016. His Naval service concluded in May 2017, when he transitioned to the United States Navy Reserve.He is currently stationed in Ventura, California.

Iwuji is of Igbo descent, an ethnic group of people in Nigeria.His parents immigrated to the United States in the 1980s. As of 2017, Iwuji is one of three African-American drivers actively competing in a NASCAR series along with Wallace and Pro Series East driver Jay Beasley.

He is involved in various philanthropic and military-related activities. He is the racing ambassador for the Phoenix Patriot Foundation, a group formed after the September 11 attacks to support wounded soldiers. "We dedicate each race weekend to a wounded veteran and his family," Iwuji stated. "The effort has been widely supported by race officials and others. It's an opportunity for everyone to give back to the people who've made a sacrifice on their behalf." In March 2016, he drove a four-year-old boy with terminal cancer in a two-seat stock car. In May, he served as a host for a veteran's family prior to the Coca-Cola 600; as part of the NASCAR Salutes program, which honors United States military personnel, he was a guest co-host of NASCAR.com's GarageCam series.