There is no right or wrong answer to today’s topic. Finding out if your child is ready for “racing” is only mandated by your child’s enthusiasm for the sport. If your child is able to go to the track and drive the kart and no matter how they placed, they want to get back out there and drive more, then your child is ready for racing. Before you start getting your proposals ready for sponsorship, there are some important things to be ready for first.
Don’t expect your child to head to the track and get picked up by sponsors from a Formula 1 team. There’s a race-craft that needs to be learned, a type of professionalism that is displayed on and off the track, feedback to the engineers and technicians and so much more. The first thing that you should be looking into is seeing what your child can do on their own. Are they willing to try new things to see what works for them? Can your child receive simple instructions from someone and they can do as they are told?
Much like with anything, if you or your child is enthusiastic about the sport, then there is a willingness to learn and try new things within the sport. Have you ever noticed that when you’ve picked up a hobby, how much more into it you can be compared to others who are not? The same applies to racing. At the end of the day, your child should be more enthusiastic about racing than when they first arrived; no matter how many times you’ve been to the track.
Seat time usually leads to success. Success is measured by the little steps taken and learned. Winning doesn’t always translate to success. You could be in a situation where you are winning because the other drivers were not very good. You could also be in a situation where your child is in last-place but the field is filled with talented drivers. The focus at this point is just improving your lap times and finding out where your mistakes are and searching for ways to correct them.
The last point I want to bring up is that you and your child’s goals should be different. As a parent, I too have been guilty of pushing my son to go to the track when he didn’t want to. Talking to many successful drivers, the common theme is that their parent(s) didn’t force them to do racing and pressure them to win. I specifically remember several times that my son was upset that he didn’t win. I told him that I was proud that he was upset because he had a passion for the sport. I also reminded him that there were other factors that may have prevented him from winning. Winning is good but the willingness to better was way more important.