Colin Queen: From CHD survivor to Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America racer

We acknowledge that professional race drivers are athletes, sometimes to shut down bad-faith arguments about people sitting in cars and driving in circles, sometimes to reinforce what being a racing driver demands of those who aspire to become one.

And when we do that, we bring up their physical fitness. Even in sports car racing, and even in categories where ‘amateur’ drivers in their 40s, 50s, 60s and up regularly participate, those amateurs are still training their bodies like a professional driver that’s young enough to be their child.

Whether it’s a Ben Barker or a Ben Keating, we marvel at their reflexes, their coordination, their strength, their ability to maintain a high heart rate of 150 beats per minute or more when pushed to their limit behind the wheel.

But for roughly one in 100 children born in either the U.S. or the UK who are born with a congenital heart defect (CHD), being able to live as normal a life as possible is difficult. Being an athlete at the highest levels of their craft with this condition is even more challenging and risky, but not entirely unprecedented.

In the IMSA paddock, American driver Colin Queen is 1-of-1. Queen, a 20-year-old rookie in the Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America series, is the only active driver in professional motorsport who lives with and races with CHD.

“I’ve lived with it my whole life. I’ve just had to overcome a little bit more obstacles than most, especially on the physical side of things. It took a lot of years to build up my muscles and endurance, but, you know, I’m a full-blown athlete now,” he said in the lead-up to his first Super Trofeo races at Sebring International Raceway.

Queen had undergone three open-heart surgeries and many other medical procedures before he’d turned three years old, not unlike other infants and children with CHD. Now 20, Queen has had to train his body differently than the other young talents of sports car racing — focusing on building muscle over cardio — but it’s worked out for the young man who, if you squint, could stand in for two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Josef Newgarden.

As Queen puts it, “I live with half a heart, as I like to say!” But he is by no means half the athlete or half the driver of his peers — far above it, actually.

The Hollywood-born driver has proven that over his karting career, whether it was at home in the U.S. or abroad in Europe as he racked up the wins and championships as a child. He leveraged that success and broke into Britain’s Formula Ford racing scene, and by 2022, the American teenager was making waves in the UK.

Queen was second in the BRSCC Formula Ford Championship, won Knockhill’s David Leslie Trophy, Silverstone’s Jim Walsh Trophy, and an unprecedented Triple Crown Championship in the series’ biggest three races at Silverstone, Brands Hatch and Donington.

Queen leveraged that FF success into a ₤20,000 ($26,500) scholarship to advance into the 2023 MSVR GB4 Series, and finished fourth in the standings for accomplished single-seater squad Fortec Motorsports. The following year, he moved up the MSV ladder to GB3 — the spiritual successor to the British Formula 3 Championships of old — where he took 10 top-10 finishes and was Fortec’s top driver in a difficult season.

At a career crossroads, Queen has taken the path that many other young drivers have done when they reach an impasse in single-seaters — changing to sports car racing in the hope of becoming a factory racing driver. It’s brought him back from the UK to his new home in Palm City, Fla., and into a completely new environment where he’ll be racing around several of America’s best circuits for the first time.

“The transition from single-seaters has been quite different — it’s definitely new to me,” Queen said during his first weekend in the Lamborghini Huracán ST EVO2. “It’s a big learning curve from the single-seater route in the UK.

“For me the biggest change is slowing my mind down, really. The thing about open-wheelers is that everything is so fast, and I really have to slow down my mind — I kind of have to be more proactive with what the car is doing. It’s a heavy piece of machinery, and it’s not going to be as easy to drive — it’s not going to be as nimble as an F3 like I drove last year.

“But I think I’ve got on top of it really, really fast. There’s still some things I can work on but I love it. It’s new to me, but I’m taking in all the information and making the best out of it.”

Driving for Alain Nadal’s ANSA Motorsports team, a top contender in the Pro class based out of South Florida, Queen feels he’s found the right environment to start his sports car racing career.

“ANSA Motorsports has been absolutely phenomenal to me — almost like family at this point,” Queen said. “We were talking months before we signed the contract, and we were thinking about Super Trofeo towards the end of the GB3 season. And they really brought me up to speed in this car really, really fast. We have great mechanics, and great engineers. Nico Jamin, my coach, he’s an incredible guy.

“It’s just a fantastic environment, I think, to start off my GT journey and really try to make a career for myself. And they’re a fast team — they want to win. So we’re going to try to make that happen this year.

“It’s new to me that it’s a more of a team sport, as well. To have a teammate like Enzo Geraci, who’s won the Young Driver’s program, is incredible: He’s a very, very fast driver, especially for how young he is, 18 years old. And I’ve learned almost everything off of him.

“We’re going to push each other very hard throughout the season. We’ve already worked well as a team in the first race. I think as I get better, we all get better together. It’s just going to be really, really good.”

Queen and Geraci have difficult challengers to overcome, whether it’s perennial LSTNA juggernaut Wayne Taylor Racing’s Pro duo of Danny Formal and Hampus Eriksson, or World Speed’s Jaden Conwright and Scott Huffaker — two young drivers rich in IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship experience.

“The competition here is very stiff — we have a lot more pro cars than last year,” Queen noted. “Having names like Danny Formal and Ericsson, you know, the Wayne Taylor car is going to be great for just pushing myself to the limit to try and beat them. I think most of the Pro cars are very, very fast and it’s close racing for sure.”

Queen hasn’t ruled out coming back to open-wheel competition if the right opportunity comes around but for now, he sees GT3 racing in his long-term future.

“I believe sports cars is the best way to make a career out of racing,” Queen said. “You know, we’re always told to go as far as possible in single-seaters before you go to sports cars. And I think now is the absolute perfect time for me to go to GT racing. GB3 last season was incredible — competition-wise I learned so much that I can apply a lot of what I’ve learned over to here. I think that is 100 percent where I want to make my future.

“I do want to go down the GT3 route, of course. I think choosing Lamborghini Super Trofeo, it’s the perfect single-make series in terms of opportunities and representing such an incredible brand.

“The car is absolutely fantastic, and I think it’s the best move I could have made, going back here to America, racing in the series. A lot of doors can be open for this, and I’m looking to make the most out of the opportunities.”

As he climbs the racing ladder, Queen is determined to give back to those who are facing challenges similar to those he has overcome. As a dedicated Ambassador for Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and the British Heart Foundation, Queen has raised money to fund research and patient care for both organizations, as CHD remains under-recognized and under-funded.

“Having this platform is incredible to promote that,” Queen said. “I’m trying to reach out to people at the American Heart Assocation, to see what we can do throughout the year.”

Queen took two top-five finishes at Sebring in his first weekend of Super Trofeo racing. This weekend at Laguna Seca, he and Geraci will face off against another strong field, hoping to reach the podium — and perhaps even the top step. It won’t be easy, but it’s been a remarkable achievement for Colin Queen just to reach this point and show the sports car racing world that his condition will not slow him down, as he lives by his personal motto:

“I wholeheartedly believe that anything is possible, as long as you put your mind to it and work your absolute ass off!”