A cart racer now, HH student aiming for NASCAR

Some day Kyle Hathcox hopes to be driving on the 2.5-mile high banks of Daytona International Speedway.

The 16-year-old Ahwatukee Foothills resident hopes to get to the NASCAR shine and home of stock car's Super Bowl three-quarters-of-a-mile at a time in a single-seat, shifter go-kart.

"I've always loved racing," said Hathcox, a junior at Horizon Honors High School in Ahwatukee.

His early seat time came in a much slower amusement ride at Fiddlesticks, a family amusement park across the freeway on Elliott Road in Tempe.

"When I was 11 or 12 my dad would take me to Fiddlesticks and I did pretty well there," Hathcox explained. "Then we went to the indoor track near the airport and I did really well there, too."

That's when Hathcox, and his father, Mike, decided to buy a cart and go racing.

"I got a chance to test drive one and I've been racing ever since," he said.

Hathcox will be going into his fifth season in February.

Instead of the public karts that reach a maximum of about 15 mph, he has been driving an open racing kart powered by a power plant that, when pegged at 16,000 revolutions per minutes, can reach 125 mph.

Hathcox also had to learn how to shift through the six gears mounted on a steering column to maneuver the 12 turns at the Phoenix Kart Racing Association track in north Phoenix.

"That's the fun part," he said. "I'd ridden motorcycles and quads (four-wheel all terrain vehicles) before, but I never had to learn how to shift. My dad didn't think I'd be able to handle it, but when we bought our first shifter my dad was shocked that I did as well as I did."

It can still be a tricky art.

"The timing can get complicated and comes down to a fine line when you're trying to find the right revs point in the shifter at the start," Hathcox said. "If you let the clutch out too much, you can kill the motor and if you don't let it out enough, you won't go anywhere. Eventually, it becomes second nature."

Over the years the Hathcoxs have built up a racing stable of five karts.

Kyle said they are trying to sell a couple of the karts so they can concentrate on the light stock and unlimited division, and open up more room in the trailer they take on the racing circuit.

"The trailer can fill up pretty fast," he explained. "Especially if you're going out of state you've got to take a lot of stuff. We go to California about once a month and you never know what's going to break. You can test everything before you leave, but if you get there and something doesn't work you can be done for the weekend even before the race starts."

Things can happen when racing California drivers.

"They're really good," Hathcox said. "You have to learn how to bump and put a nose on somebody or you're not going to move through the field at all."

In karts, like motorcycles, speed comes from weight to horsepower and at 6-foot-1 Hathcox is always battling that ratio.

"Because I'm so big, we're always struggling with the weight battle even with no weight in the kart," Hathcox said.

That hasn't kept him from winning trophies and championships and racing against professionals like Buddy Rice, a Phoenix native and 2004 Indianapolis 500 winner, who still races at the PKRA track to stay sharp.

Firebird International Raceway is closer to Hathcox's home, but he puts on more miles at the PKRA track.

"The gearing at Firebird is a lot different," Hathcox explained. "The gearing a PKRA is a lot closer to what we run on other tracks where we race."

He can reach 110 mph at Firebird and, unlike other open-wheel racing or stock cars, karts, like motorcycles, have no roll bars or seat harnesses. 

Hathcox is learning about engines and chassis from his father.

Since karts don't have any suspension, it puts a higher demand on a driver and performance.

"I know the basic stuff, but my dad still does about 99 percent of the work," he said.

That's why, if his racing career doesn't take off before he graduates, he plans to move to North Carolina and attend the NIT (NASCAR Technical Institute).

"That's where you learn to work on the cars, get on a (racing) team and maybe, someday, take a test run to see how well you can do," Hathcox said. "I'm planning on the karts taking me to NASCAR. That's what I want to do."