It's amazing that you can do this with your son. Cherish the time.

having someone yaking in your ear doesnt help your mental bandwidth.

let him calm down before you start throwing more **** at him.

I have no problem with it either. I raced YSR's against Nicky Hayden when he was 11 (even though his birth certificate said 13 :) ) and he beat me good!

When I raced 125 shifter karts, most of my competition was 16 since that was minimum age for the class and most had moved up through the ranks and they were more disciplined than most driver's twice their age.

Enjoy the racing as a fun activity and don't bet the farm on trying to get him up to a professional level

Interested to see how competitive he is without the weight advantage

I live in a racing hub.
People move here to step up into harder racing for their sons and daughters...
I would absolutely be fine with some of these as a 14YO on track racing.
There are plenty in the area that are quite capable.

I could understand someone wanting to see some of that karting first to make their own judgement.

There was one special kid that if he were tall enough I'd of trusted him to both run hard and not wreck in a full fledged race car at age nine.
He didn't need much coaching, and could alter his driving as conditions changed in a way even most experienced and fully coached adults lack.

Racing, all sports, academics, piloting, etc.: You can improve average, make them excellent, but you can not teach gifted, you can only hone the gift, give perspective.

We all know it, most just do not want to admit it.

Uncle, your children have a gift: excellent parents willing to see what is the art of their possibilities.

It is what we do.

Tomorrow is the big day. His first SM sprint race…

I wias checking Minowa at Formula Drift Seattle.
Very much respect. He's at the top battling the best.


https://www.formulad.com/drivers/hiroya-minowa

In my years of racing motorcycles and later a Z28 and finally a Porsche 914-6 and my daughter Julia JR wanted to have a "sports car" so we got a 914 2L with a few extras that the owner of Black Forest in San Diego had put in. The local San Diego PCA and the SCCA let her autocross and eventually time trials and we got ready for the Parade in Sacramento CA in 2000. She had gotten good enough to actually beat some Miatas that were hard to better. She was known for playing her stereo very loud and having her heft elbow out the window. We had to fudge her age as she was under 18 when Parade registration opened but made it.

She won her class in the 914 2L ladies group by 12.73 seconds! The officials added extra course folks as they felt she had cut some of the course but nooooo her next time was nearly identical so there. Oh yeah she had her stereo blasting each run too.
John Rogers

He’s out for practice…

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1724512206.jpg

Looks like we are the only ones in SM running a muffler… that may change.

Best of luck to you and your boy, unclebilly.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/support/smileys/clap.gifhttp://forums.pelicanparts.com/support/smileys/clap.gif

Best
Les

^^^ what Les said ^^^

He had a great day and got some contingency points. He was very cautious the first 2 races, for the last race, I told him to push a little harder and he had a great dog fight going.

He finished up last but was racing against guys with literally tens of thousands of laps on this track. He had fun and the stewards were VERY impressed with his ability. There is talk of a rule change for next year based on what happened today.

He brought the car home with no damage, had one minor off into the grass but otherwise everything went according to plan.

There is only one way to gain experience.
Good on you both!
(Tell me, dad: did your heart rate go up, just a little bit?)

Best
Les

Sadly, I was on the phone (FaceTime) with my wife dealing with a blown water line at home and didn’t get to see more than a few seconds of his first race.

I had total confidence in him and wasn’t concerned. I was nervous about one other competitor pulling a stunt that told me back in May that he didn’t feel Clay belonged on the track… interestingly, at the end of the day he made a point of congratulating Clay on his first race day…

Exciting Update! Congratulations to both you and your son.

Well, it happened. On Saturday Clay and I did our first Father and Son Endurance Race. We entered a 3 hour Iron Man race together.

I let him start and do the first hour and forty before I took the wheel for the last hour and twenty…

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1727092622.jpg

I would NOT race against him!

I don't wanna lose :D

Nice!

You should buy the kid some decent shoes.:)