Thirteen-year-old Kendall Curit knows what he likes about go-kart racing and he has sound advice for anybody else who might be interested.

“If you like speed,” he said, “you’d probably want to do this. If you don’t, you might want to try something else.”

Racing around in compact motorized karts at 55 to 60 mph isn’t for everyone. It is, however, for Kendall, a Windham Middle School student who picked up the sport three years ago.

In that span he’s found out what it takes to win races and this season he won a pair of Southern Maine Karting championships at Beech Ridge in Scarborough. He won 14 out of 30 races this season and didn’t finish out of the top three this year.

Kendall’s season ended last month, he’s now deep into football (he’s a linebacker) and his car sits on blocks in his dad Randy’s garage.

It’s marked with the number “48”, hinting at his admiration of NASCAR’s Jimmy Johnson, and has a tribute to his grandfather, Randy’s father Rex Curit, a former auto racer at Beech Ridge.

“Grandpa is my co-pilot” is scripted on the side of Kendall’s kart, but the specific tribute to Rex, who died in 1996 when Kendall was just a few years old, changes from year to year.

“If he was alive today, he would be into this,” said Randy, who helps Kendall prepare his machine and is almost as into it as his son is. But he admits, “I started out knowing absolutely less than nothing” about go-kart racing.

Randy gives a lot of credit to the organizers of the league, Joe and Donna Pastore, who leased Beech Ridge for go-karts starting in 1992.

“They’ve done some great things for go-karting and what it’s done for Kendall has been huge,” Randy said.

Southern Maine Karting Inc. has grown and now offers races for kids as young as six-years-old and to adults.

The divisions include Young Guns (for novices), Blue Devils, a two-cycle division and Pro Animals.

Safety is still a priority, with approved roll cages, a five-point harness, leg restraints, helmets and neck safety straps all standard equipment.

Kendall says, “you can’t be afraid, or you won’t be competitive,” another trick of the trade.

Kendall said he’s made good friends in karting, including Cory Dubar of Falmouth and Bobby Timmons of Windham, a past champion who quickly became Kendall’s on-track rival.

Randy says the sport has not only sparked the kids’ friendship, “it also brings families together,” he said.

“After one race that went back and forth between Kendall and Cory. They were putting on a whale of a show and I found myself rooting for Cory to come back and pass him, I was so caught up in the race.”

But families of racers support each other, he said, and it’s not unusual for teams to borrow strategy and mechanical tips from others.

Getting into the sport can cost several thousand dollars. Competitors in each division race with the same chassis and sealed motor, which keeps things fair, “and brings out the skills of the drivers,” Randy said.

Kendall doesn’t yet know if he’ll be back to attempt a repeat of his fine performance when the track opens next summer.

Track officials have considered starting a kids’ four-cylinder division and Kendall says he is eager to move up. Look out Jimmy Johnson.

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