Race track is a gas for pint-size driver

13-year-old a veteran of the sprint kart circuit

By: Jake Uitti
   In racing, good drivers must navigate that fine line between heart-pounding speed and life-saving control.
   There may be no better way to learn that lesson than by starting early.
   That is exactly what Forrest Hull is learning as he continues his already successful career as a sprint kart racer.
   Forrest, a 13-year-old resident of Princeton Borough, said his racing education began with his father, Brandon.
   "My dad had raced Porches for a while; I always thought that was cool," said Forrest, whose dad raced in the Northeast. "We started looking for something I could do. Then we found out about karting."
   The kind of racing Forrest participates in involves a 5-foot long, 3-foot wide sprint kart.
   "It’s like a car, but doesn’t have a roll cage," said Forrest, who began his racing in 2004 when he was 10 years old. "It’s a lot smaller too."
   Forrest now splits his time between two tracks, Oakland Valley Raceway near Port Jervis, N.Y., and Raceway Park in Englishtown.
   He has traveled to tracks as far away as Daytona, Fla., Charlotte, N.C., and others in Wisconsin, Indiana and Maryland.
   This year, Forrest competed in 29 races, locally, regionally and nationally in the cadet as well as the Yamaha junior sportsman classes. He placed 14 times and he finished 12th overall nationally in the World Karting Association George Kugler Manufacturer’s Cup Series.
   He also finished first overall in the Yamaha class in the WKA Divisional Northeast Sprints series, a regional series drawing racers from New York, Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
   Until recently, Forrest’s cars competed at upwards of 60 miles per hour. Next year, Forrest will be moving up in class and will be competing in even faster races.
   "It’s just fun to go that fast and take the turns," Forrest said. "I’ve raced on a lot of different tracks. The one in Raceway Park is three-tenths miles long and the one in Oakland Valley is three-quarters of a mile. Some other tracks in Charlotte, for example, have been a lot longer."
   For each race, he said, there is normally a three-lap qualifying run, an eight-lap heat and a 12-lap feature run — all of which takes about an hour spread throughout the day.
   On a typical race day, the morning is spent with four to five practice sessions, then the racing program begins.
   Early in his racing career, Forrest experienced a rough crash, spraining his thumb and shattering most of his helmet. The crash set him back six months, but soon after he got up to drive again.
   Forrest has even studied under Jon Nevoso, a former teacher of Marco Andretti, the grandson of racing legend Mario Andretti.
   Forrest, a student at Princeton Charter School, said he does not have a favorite professional racecar driver. That’s mostly due to the fact that his parents do not subscribe to cable or satellite television, he said.
   Instead, Forrest reads, watches movies and spends time with his friends while he is not racing or doing school work.
   For such a competitive, athletic person, one might assume gym or recess would be Forrest’s favorite subject at school. That is not the case, however.
   "My favorite subjects are either math and science or math and English," he said.
   Forrest, despite being dedicated to school, practices almost every weekend from April through October. And until this year, he was home schooled so that his schedule would be more flexible for his sport.
   Next year, Forrest will race in the WKA Yamaha Junior lite and heavy series, as well as the Junior Intercontinental class, an international class where karts are prepared to the same rules in the U.S., Europe and Asia.
   He will also compete in the elite "Stars of Karting" series.
   His first 2007 race will be in the Florida Winter Tour, which kicks off in January at Homestead Miami raceway in South Florida.
   Forrest said he is expecting to attend Princeton High School next year — that is, of course, if he is not racing for the NASCAR’s coveted Nextel Cup trophy sometime in the near future.