Beginner’s luck? Hardly.

Ethan Thompson, a third-grader in the South Butler School District, tried go-kart racing for the first time this season at Blairsville Speedway.

He wound up winning 10 of 18 races and tallied 372 points, edging out best friend and school-mate Levi Yetter by five for the points championship in the Kid Cage division. Yetter won four races.

“It was real close. It came down to the last race,” said Tammy Yetter, Levi’s mother. “Levi’s been doing this for three and a half years now.

“Ethan and Levi play baseball together. They’ve been best friends for a good while now. I’m sure they’ll be back next year to go at it again.”

Racing has been a part of the Yetter family for years. Tammy said her father raced at Lernerville Speedway. Her brother-in-law, Ken Schaltenbrand, has been racing a Late Model at Lernerville for a long time.

“Karting is just another part of the racing life for us,” Mrs. Yetter said.

Terry Thompson, Ethan’s father, has been a racing fan his whole life. The closest he’s come to racing himself was doing a NASCAR “reality experience” a few years ago in Michigan, riding a car around the speedway.

Three years ago, his son expressed an interest in getting on the track.

“I bought him a kart, we put it together and got him out there this year,” Thompson said. “Ethan is just intuitive during a race. He knows how to anticipate an opening on the track before it’s even there.

“He tells me he wants to race his whole life. He’s really gotten into it.”

And so it goes.

Kart racing could be considered a training ground toward moving on to a Pure Stock, Sprint or Late Model division on a dirt track later in life.

Or it could become a life-long hobby.

Bill Shever, 53, of Butler is one of the older kart racers at Blairsville. He finished second in points in the Senior Medium division this season, falling nine points short of a championship.

Shever just completed his fifth year in the sport.

“I’ve been around racing all my life,” Shever said. “A friend of mine was running a kart and needed some help, so I worked with him. I had a couple of chances to run the kart around the track and got addicted.

“I’d love to get into something bigger, but financially, without backing ... It’s just not there.”

Karting is a competitive form of racing in and of itself. It takes $3,000 or more to put together an effective kart and there are plenty of them out there.

Blairsville Speedway features six age divisions: 5-8 for Kid Cage, 8-10 for Junior Sportsman, 10-12 for Gold Plate, 12-15 for Junior Champion, 15-older for Senior Lite, senior Medium and Senior Heavy, depending on the combined weight of the kart and driver.

“We get 50 to 65 karts on an average Saturday night,” Blairsville Speedway promoter Stan Caroline said. “There’s an even split there between 14 and under and 15 and over.

“Ten years ago, our numbers were down. The last three years, they’ve been recovering a bit. Karting is becoming popular again.”

The competition is getting tougher along with it.

“I’ve only won three or four features since I started,” Shever said. “It’s a tough class. But our karts can hit 60 miles per hour on straightaways and the rush you get when you’re on the track competing just can’t be explained.”

Blairsville, Naugle Speedway (near the Pittsburgh airport) and Slippery Rock Raceway are the closest kart tracks in this area.

Jacob Peiffer, 16, of Cabot has been kart racing for nearly six years. Levi Yetter is his cousin and Jacob got his start in a kart originally put together for Levi.

“The kart was ready and Levi was still too young, so his dad wanted me to run it,” Peiffer said.

He hasn’t stopped winning since.

Pfeiffer owns approximately 60 feature wins and two track championships. Now he’s getting involved in the “big money” races.

“The high quality karting tracks are out around Harrisburg,” he said. “There are big races down south, some paying as much as $50,000 to win. We’re going to travel to more of those next year.”

While accidents do happen — Shever said he suffered bruised ribs twice this season and an older racer broke his collarbone — kart racing is relatively safer than quads or dirt bikes.

“The younger kids are in a roll cage and they’re belted in,” Terry Thompson said. “If they get flipped, it’s like they’re in a bubble.”

Mrs. Yetter said Levi races with a neck device similar to that used in NASCAR. The younger kids’ karts generally can’t go faster than 30 miles per hour.

“He (Levi) wanted to quad race, but I went for the go-karting,” she said. “It’s just as competitive and much safer.”

It’s more economical for the long haul as well.

“The kart Levi’s in now will last him until he hits the 12-13 age level,” his mother said.

Ethan and Levi play baseball, basketball and dek hockey together, along with racing.

“The kart thing is going to win out,” Mr. Thompson predicted. “These kids love it.”