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The fastest professional racers start in karts:

Sharif presenting to the students

As many of you know, Forged Performance sponsors the ProCup Karting Ultimate Race Camp and every Friday afternoon, a handful of the Forged team makes their way down to Andretti’s Entertainment and Karting Center to speak with the youngest and newest motorsports enthusiasts. This time, I brought Amy and Brittany with me as we gave these bright young stars a look into the high performance automotive aftermarket world.

Starting at a young age in a low powered kart is one of the fastest methods of accelerating a drivers learning curve.  History illustrates that many of the fastest and most prolific professional race car drivers, such as Louis Hamilton and Michael Schumaker, began their careers at a very young age in go-karts.  The karts featured at Andrettis are serious machines and demand respect, focus, and attention. Reaching speeds of 35mph and pulling 2-3g’s of lateral acceleration means the driver must be precise and deliberate in their inputs.

Generally, a Georgia State Driver license is required to operate the karts, but during the kids karting programs the rule is relaxed and the kids spend a mix of time in the classroom, and on track led by Chris McCoy and his team of instructors. They are some of the most experienced karters in the business, and they are there to impart their wisdom and knowledge to the kids and most importantly, they make sure everyone stays safe and has a good time! Stressing the importance of safety, team work, and good friendly competition the kids spend a good deal of time on track using the skills they are taught in the classroom. Racing fundamentals, such as learning the “line”, being smooth and fast, trail braking, and the difference between early and late apexes are all thoroughly discussed while put into practice behind the wheel of the karts!

We also brought the Forged/Catesby FP800R GT-R that that competes every year in the One Lap of America event. It’s a fully street legal car on street tires, but turns lap times that rival most race cars on slicks!

After our presentation, we were treated to an hour’s worth of racing against some of the fastest kids at Andrettis. They have been trained well, and I got schooled by more than one of them!

Bobby is one of the fastest kids and consistently beats most of the adults. He is giving a few pointers on the new track configuration

I would like to personally thank the staff and management at Andretti’s and ProCup Karting for putting some a valuable and important program for kids and allowing Forged Performance to be a part of their program.

For more pictures, check out our photo gallery of the event:

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