I decided starting a blog site for Hunter's karting adventures would probably be easier than having to tell everyone all the stuff separately. And why HES2? Well, Hadyn has to do everything her bubby does, so we figure she'll be racing in a few years. Anyway...
Hunter is our NASCAR fanantic. Ask the kid anything about NASCAR (for the past few years) and he can probably tell you what you want to know. Jeff Gordon is his favorite driver. Hunter wants to be a NASCAR driver like Jeff Gordon. Jeff Gordon started his career by racing karts when he was Hunter's age. Following the line of thought here? Ergo.....
In Google-ing around one day, I found a karting track fairly close to us. We went to visit and watch a race, asked some questions and watched Hunter to see if he really wanted to do this. Since he is 7 years old (turning 8 this year), he would be in the Kid Kart class for a year before he would move up to the really competitive classes. In the Kid Kart class, everyone comes in 1st place and gets a nice trophy...you know...just gets them into the racing aspect of this sport. So if he was going to do it, this was the year to start.
We started checking around to see if anyone had a Kid Kart we could just try out and see if he would even be willing to "go fast" and race. We talked to a couple of racing dads and found a kart to try out and maybe buy. Hunter didn't seem too sure of himself while trying it out, but we decided to make the plunge anyway.
As we have visited the track (we're members now), he has gotten more confident and faster. A mentor we are working with complimented Hunter telling us that he as a natural ability as a racer. Wow! The Angels were singing with that statement. Any parent loves to hear that about their child. Especially a kid that has had no interest in anything other than racing and cars for years.
We skipped the first race of the Spring season to make sure that Hunter was ready and safe to race before getting on the track with the other kids. His mentor advised us that he should be making this 1/2 mile, 9 turn track in under 60 seconds in order to be safe to race. His first few times on the track were turning 1:15's down to 1:04's. The last time we were at the track, he was making the laps in 57 seconds!!! So, we are ready to race.
His first race will be on Sunday, March 22nd at 1PM at North Texas Kartways. I've put the schedule of races and a map on the sidebar of this blog for the convience of Hunter's fans ;).
We hope to see you at a race!!!
(FYI: the Kid Karts run 3 heats - qualifying, pre-final, and final. For the 1PM starts, the times usually run as such: 1PM qualifying, 2:30 pre-final, 4:45 final.)
WOW !
ReplyDelete