Where 9 year olds do 60 MPH

On the second day of the Texas Grand Prix, the engines roared. While mechanics tinkered with vehicles, drivers discussed strategy with their coaches and tried to memorize the turns of the track at Speedsportz Racing Park outside Houston. “I’m picturing it in my head,” said Mikey Collins as he waited for his estrous cycle to begin on the last weekend in April. “I’m imagining it and trying to do laps.”

Mikey isn’t a professional race car driver yet – he’s only 9. And the vehicle he would soon climb into was a go-kart. But for many kids who dream of racing professionally, it all starts here: sending go-karts down a winding track at 60 to 70 miles per hour, flying just inches across the ground.

Like many drivers, Mikey started young, when he was just 5, at his local track in Orlando, Fla. He was addicted. “I like competitive things,” he says. “Anything to do with passing and trying to take the lead.” Kids who take the sport seriously move on to national races like the one in Texas: day-long competitions where dozens of drivers compete against other kids in their age group in heats.

It’s all a lot of time and work. Drivers can compete in dozens of races each year, both nationally and locally, so many are homeschooled. When not racing, some exercise by lifting weights or doing cardio. Or maybe they test drive simulators that mimic the racing experience. And it’s expensive: equipment and travel, as well as coaches and mechanics and sometimes even sports psychologists to help the kids deal with the pressures of racing.

You must also have nerves of steel. “There was one time I was going for a pass, and I knocked the wind out of me, and I almost flipped,” says Bristol Borneman, 11, who has lived in San Diego County and has been racing since she was 7.

But for the drivers, it’s all worth it. Not just for the trophies, or even the dream of turning pro. It’s also a really good time. “I get to come out here and travel the world, hit the track and compete with really good racers,” says Bristol. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Additional reporting by Scott Rossi.