Phil started out as a gopher as soon as he was out of diapers.  He was working on his dad’s car and learning along the way.  His first year of driving was in 1998.  He drove in the Pure Stock Class at M-40 Speedway in Jones, Mi.  It was a very productive year for him as he was the Track Champion, Rookie of the Year and track record holder.  He garnered 5 feature wins along the way. Phil went on to compete in the Super Shoe Nationals in October. 

In 1999 Phil moved up to the limited late model division at Kalamazoo Speedway driving the Johnny Mines car.  He finished a strong 10th in points and was nominated for Rookie of the Year.  He also made every A Feature for the year.  He had 1 feature win in 1999, the Super Shoe Tune-up. In August of 1999 he became the youngest driver to run in the Kalamazoo Klash. 

In the 2000 season for limited late models, he competed with a 1997 Port City Chassis. Phil finished 7th in points.  He had 4 heats wins for the year.  In the 2000 Super Shoe Nationals he won his heat, the Dash for Cash and finished 4th in the A main feature.  Phil has also raced at the Northern Michigan Classic, The Pat Beebe Memorial for super late models, 2 times in the Kalamazoo Klash for super lates and in 2000 raced in the limited late model division during the Main Event in Columbus, OH. 

In the 2001 season, Phil moved up to the Super Late Model division at Kalamazoo Speedway and garnished Rookie of the Year Honors along with the Sportsman of the Year Award. He also began driving for the Pobuda Brothers Racing Team in 2001 and continued with them in the 2002 Season where he garnished his first 2 Super Late A-Feature wins at Kalamazoo Speedway. Along with finishing 9th in points at Kalamazoo, Phil also raced in four ARCA Lincoln Welders truck series events. These four events proved to be very productive. In the first race at Illiania speedway we started near the rear of the pack while getting used to driving the truck, we worked our way up to 2nd and nearly pulled off the win with a last turn effort coming up just short. We were very excited about the results and looked forward to the next event. Toledo Speedway was the host of the next event and with never being there it took a bit of getting used to. We qualified midpack and knew we had a good truck, after slowly working our way to  the front and some misfortune on the leaders part we found ourself leading in only our second start. After the three lap sprint to the checkered flag we were celebrating in victory lane. We also competed in two more events with a second place finish at Lake Erie Speedway and a sixth place finsh at Dixie Speedway. 

At the start of the 2003 season with the new Sappanos-Bozell Racing team and a new car we came out of the box strong. Running at or near the front most of the year, we proved it was no fluke on the 4th of July winning our first race as a team. We continued  to run strong, and with a strong 2nd place finish at the Klash we proved we were contenders. With the season winding down we were right in the middle of a good points battle and we ended up with a strong third place finish in the points, right behind Dad and Uncle Jeff.

During the year i also got the chance to drive an ashpalt modified and finished 3rd after starting 26th. My second run in a modified, I ended up winning the Michigan Modified State Championships! We also puchased our own ARCA Remax car and worked on preparing that for our ARCA debut at Salem Speedway this fall. In our first attempt we qualified 24th and ended up finishing 18th. We took in everything we learned and look forward to using that in the near future.

Plans for 2004 are to compete in selected ARCA Remax events to gain as much experience as possible!