Jared Odrick, Former NFL First-Round Draft Pick, Has Reinvented Himself as a Champion Trans Am Driver

This weekend, Jared Odrick will look to begin the defense of his 2025 CUBE 3 Architecture TA2 Pro Am Class championship in the season-opening event at Sebring International Raceway behind the wheel of the No. 00 Troy Benner Autosport machine. While Odrick has impressed mightily since stepping into the Trans Am world, his path to becoming a racecar driver is as unconventional as it has been successful.

After a seven-year career playing as a defensive end in the National Football League, where he was a first-round draft pick for the Miami Dolphins in 2010, Odrick spent five years essentially lost. Sure, post-football, he'd pursue writing, acting, art, and he'd mull a potential football coaching career. But at the end of the day, none of those options effectively scratched the 38-year-old's competitive itch.

Odrick needed something more.

"I took about five years away from competition and from sports and competing myself and trying to figure out, do you want to be a coach? And that's not something that I really wanted to do right away," Odrick explained in an exclusive interview with Racing America.

Odrick continued, "Competitions would lure me in as a means of refinement, you know, I was kind of floating around after football, kind of getting into some heavy topics, and decided to put my hands to work again."

It was during this pivotal point in Odrick's life that he would be introduced to racing for the first time by a family friend, Ed Keturakis, who is affectionately known as Uncle Ed. Keturakis competes as a driver in SCCA.

"He showed me his Miata race out of High Plains Raceway in Colorado back in 2020, or the Summer of '21," Odrick recalled. "And I just couldn't believe that type of Spec Miata amateur racing is that competitive, but also available to people that didn't inherit racing, whether through their family or through any other means."

Immediately, Odrick jumped into the deep end of the racing pool. He would purchase a Porsche Cup car and attend racing school at Summit Point Motorsports Park in West Virginia in spring 2022. Odrick would officially go racing that winter.

While there are many similarities between racing and playing football, Odrick quickly found out in his first turn behind the wheel at racing school that his pre-game ritual in the NFL would not quite translate to the race track.

"The only pregame that I had was the pregame that I had leftover from football, and part of that was being highly caffeinated, and you know, for lack of better words, amped. And I did that, and I got into the car and almost started hyperventilating," Odrick explained. "In fact, when I realized I didn't know exactly how to get out of the car if I wanted to, you know, as fast as I would potentially want to, I got out of the car. We had some private track time at the time, and I got out of the car and said, 'I got to chill out for a second. I can't do this,' and so, I waited for the caffeine to clear and I got back into the car [in a] way more calm body and mindset."

After he calmed down, Odrick got a chance to compete behind the wheel, and that's when he says, "I realized that this is probably one of the best things that's ever happened to me."

While Odrick pursues racing with the same passion that he did chasing down opposing teams' quarterbacks, he has harnessed that competitive spirit in a much calmer, more methodical approach behind the wheel. On the football field, he was tasked with tackling the competition. On the race track, he is supposed to avoid contact and use his senses to get the most out of his race car in an effort to win.

"It's kind of scaling back the physical intensity in order for there to be focus," Odrick said. "So all of that culminated, everything I said culminated into me realizing that racing is not just a new thing to attack, but it's a new discipline and it all feels like a graduation in my competition, that it's going from this kind of teenage beating of your chest that as long as you play football, it's legitimized as long as you're beating your chest and being aggressive and, in that way, to being in a car which seems to be more of a refined competitive effort."

The refined Odrick has really started to come into his own, driving in the TA2 Pro Am Class.

After scoring a single class win during the 2024 campaign, his debut season in Trans Am, Odrick erupted in 2025 to the tune of five class wins during the 12-race schedule on his path to the Pro Am championship. Along the way, Odrick would collect six overall top-10 finishes, including a best finish of fifth overall in the TA2 event at Virginia International Raceway last season.

Odrick admits winning a championship of any kind in the motorsports realm is an emotional achievement.

"I think when you win a championship, whether it's the SCCA championship in 2023 or the Trans Am championship in 2025, you know, you feel a bit more vindicated in your efforts because you put that together," Odrick said. "So there was a big emotional release because you try to keep a lot of your emotions in check and funneled into your efforts, so there's no wasted motion, and you're efficient. So, when you accomplish that goal after a year's worth of focus, then, you know, it feels great."

Going into the 2026 season, Odrick has a clearly defined goal, and that is to be deemed ineligible for the Pro Am class next season.

"There's a rule in Trans Am: if you win it twice, then you're kicked out of the Pro Am. And you have to graduate if you're gonna come back into it. So, yeah, that's definitely a goal of mine to be kicked out of the Trans Am Pro Am [class]," Odrick quipped. "But obviously, you know, a lot of crazy things can happen in racing. So we're gonna prepare the car, and its driver as much as possible to have that happen."

Heading into last season, Barry Boes was the driver within the TA2 Pro Am Class, who was, forgive the pun, the class of the field. Boes came into the campaign on the heels of a seven-win season in 2024; however, a tragic plane crash mid-season claimed Boes' life last year. Odrick, who held Boes in high regard, will look to carry on the intensity that Boes brought to the Pro Am class as the reigning champion this season.

But Odrick knows there are a lot of talented drivers within the Pro Am class.

"It's very competitive. I think there's a good amount of consistent competitors, whether it's Keith Prociuk, and then obviously, last year, Barry Bose was at the top of his game, before passing. He was the guy who was putting a lot of the pro guys on notice, and that's something that I'm hoping to continue to do myself," Odrick said. "But then, yeah, you've got all types of guys, but obviously, Keith and Roberto Sabato would show up. You know, obviously, being Pro Am, we're not considered the pros that are fully funded by or sponsored by the manufacturer, and that we're putting together our own program. And considering that the guys that I'm running against are pretty fast and that whenever, you know, John Atwell shows up there's obviously -- I could just name the whole class, right, with Tom Sheehan and whatnot, but I'm trying not to slight people, but then at the same time, I'm, you know, naming people that I think are legitimate competitors in that, and have beaten some of the pro guys as well."

It'll be an interesting fight for the 2026 TA2 Pro Am Class championship, for sure. And with success in the Pro Am Class comes additional opportunities within Trans Am, and outside of Trans Am.

While Odrick admits he has had teams in the NASCAR Canada Series and NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series reach out to him, his goal remains laser-focused on moving up the ladder within the Trans Am ecosystem.

"Yeah, I mean, I'm talking with a few other teams and series about some potential stock car driving opportunities, and, you know, there's some other GT racing opportunities that have come up from the success that we've had in Trans Am," Odrick explained. "But yeah, I mean, like, the goal would be to move up within Trans Am, wherever that could be. Whether that's a TA2 Pro campaign or a TA1 campaign in the future."

Odrick and the rest of the CUBE 3 Trans Am TA2 Series Pro and Pro Am competitors are set to compete at Sebring International Raceway this weekend, in a companion race weekend which will also feature the Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli, the Sportscar Vintage Racing Association, and International GT Series, with the TA2 race slated for Sunday, March 1. The event is scheduled to go live at 1:30 PM ET.

The events will be broadcast for free on RacingAmerica.TV, the Racing America 24/7 Streaming Channel (available on The Roku Channel, My Free DirecTV, LG Channels, and PLEX), as well as on the official Trans Am Series YouTube channel (@TheTransAmSeries). Internationally, broadcasts will air on REV TV in Canada.

-Photo Credit: Chris Clark Photography