Little kid masters QM's and takes the next step

Roger Kaido JSCA Dirt Nationals 2002

Added: April 28, 2006 Roger races National Champions twice his age and three times his experiance in National Championship race. This is his first time in this senior class, having turned 8 two weeks earlier. (also his first time on a track this size)

Roger basically "retired" from full-time quarter midget racing shortly after his 8th birthday to "move on" to greater challenges after collecting over 200 feature wins prior to his 8th birthday, along with 7 track championships at both dirt and paved tracks... ...and a National JSCA championship in 2002. He's since progressed through MiniCup and Karting, and now, at the age of 13, will be racing a dirt Late Model at tracks throughout Illinois and beyond. His quarter midget experience, especially his dirt experience, has been invaluable as he's progressed through his carreer...
His last dirt race was in a qm in 2003, but that experience has allowed him to step seamlessly from a 5 horsepower car directly into a 500+ horsepower late model.
He's only had two abbreviated practice sessions as we've sorted the car out, but within 5 laps, he was on the gas and running competitive lap times with the more powerful experienced Super Late Model cars at their home tracks... ...that was true even with a faulty steering rack his first time out that caused sporadic loss of steering due to sudden "locking" of the steering and loss of power assist. He immediately learned to compensate by steering with throttle modulation, bringing the rear end around instead of stuffing it into the wall, which would be much more common in that situation. There's video up on YouTube with excerpts from his first two practice sessions at "new" (to Roger) dirt tracks in Illinois. ...thought your viewers might be interested in what a "little kid" who had mastered quarter midgets can do in the "next step.

Here's the most recent Late Model practice:

"more from Buz" will bring up a couple of more Late Model vids, as well as a large variety of quarter midget related videos. You mightespecially interested in "5 year old racecar driveron T.V" , a compilation of two of the NBC and Fox features from his start in qm's, which were picked up by the networks and re-broadcast

35 new videos

on local stations throughout the U.S. and Canada.
...and "Awards Banquet..." , where Roger Picked up 7 Championshipawards for a single season's efforts.

Keep up the great work on the site.

Buz Kaido
Hillsboro, MO