What's Next? Jimmie Johnson or Mark Martin...

For those of you who are NASCAR fans out there perhaps you'll understand the title of this entry.  "What's Next? Jimmie Johnson or Mark Martin..."   I came up with the title in reference to Tyler's last go kart race.  As you can tell by the previous entry he won the race and I was literally jumping up and down with excitement as he crossed the finish line in first place.  I honestly hadn't thought of what it would feel like if we won a race which tells me we were doing it right because we were focused on having fun and learning.  I told Tyler that as long as we were having a good time and working hard the rest would come in time.  Well, lucky for us, time came sooner than we expected and it was absolutely an amazing feeling.  I hope that happens for us again but we'll always cherish the first win!

Tyler Takes the WIN in the Kid Kart Class on 5-22-11

So back to the title of the blog entry...   Now that we have a win under our belts what's next?  Will our future in racing be like Jimmie Johnson with more wins and championships ahead of us?  Will Tyler have a future in racing and make his way up the ladder of racing to IndyCar or NASCAR?  Will he be like some of the other amazing drivers who all started in karting and worked their way up.  Have you seen that commercial for Chevy that says, "As long as Jimmie Johnson has been racing he's been racing Chevy's..."  He started in motocross back when he was a little kid, about the same age as Tyler.  Will Tyler get lucky and be like Jimmie Johnson and have multiple wins to his name on the way to multiple championships?

Or will his racing path follow the road that Mark Martin has gone down where he works remarkably hard and always seems to come up just a little bit short of victory lane and the championship?  Mark Martin has come so close so many times but has never been able to grab the championship in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.  Will Tyler's racing career be a series of "We almost got it" or "We were so close but we missed it by that much"...

Truthfully it really doesn't matter to me at this point because the smile on Tyler's face is a MILE WIDE!!!  Granted it would be fantastic to get more wins and a karting championship however the goal right now is to continue to help him learn and enjoy himself.  If he continues to excel in the sport then we'll start to look at what the future might hold in racing but for right now the single most important thing is that he's having fun and learning at the same time.  As a Dad I looked at racing as a tremendous opportunity to help Tyler learn many things so I came up with "The Five Rules of Racing".  The reason I came up with Five rules is because Tyler was really young when he started racing, 5 years old to be exact, so that worked well and it was easy to remember because he has 5 fingers...  Seems simple but it worked.  The rules are:  Safety, Sportsmanship, Smile, Set-up and Speed with the first three being the most important rules.  It's been great to see him excel and have fun with the sport so far.  I honestly think it's been more rewarding for me than for him so you see it really doesn't matter if his path is like that of Jimmie Johnson's or Mark Martin's, the most important thing is that he's having fun and learning.

 However, if you believe in what your fortune cookies say then Tyler may be headed for a life behind the wheel as his fortune cookie on his birthday said, 

"Your future is in the Driver's Seat!"