THE LUCAS FAMILY
Kid: CARSON LUCAS, 12 YEARS OLD
Parent: ART
SISTER: KAYLEE, 12 YEARS OLD
PROCTORVILLE, OH
Carson Lucas is a 12-year-old Jr. Late Model driver that has been operating speed machines since the age of 4. While most kids were learning to ride a bike, he had already proven himself capable of operating a kart at speeds in excess of 50 mph with consistency that parallels veteran racers. Carson has proven himself on a local, regional and national level; competing in both the AKRA dirt oval kart and CRA Jr. Late Model across the Midwest and Southeast. His career stats have him with over 80 wins, a National Championship in go karting and a CRA Jr. Late Model Championship (youngest in series history).
As a single parent raising his twins alone, Art Lucas wants to do anything and everything he can to make his kids happy and successful. For Carson its racing and for Kaylee it is academics. As a matter of fact, at just 12 years old, Kaylee is taking college courses online. This isn’t always easy for Art. Outside of working 80 hour weeks at his job to support the family and pay the huge bills that come along with this sport, he is also constantly working on Carson’s car or traveling to races. Art and the kids spend way more time in his shop then they do their own house. “We spend every day together either in the shop or at the race track. Even part of the holidays we’ll be in the shop and then every year we race over Thanksgiving,” says Art.
While a lot of parents have the mindset of, “if it ever stops being fun, they can quit,” that is not a motto that Art believes in. Art has said that Carson can never quit racing. They have invested too much money and time into making this dream happen so quitting is no longer an option. If for some reason he had to quit, Art said that Carson will spend the rest of his days still working on the car and just watching someone else race it. It has been so engrained in Carson’s head that this is the only option, that he truly believes that he will never have a girlfriend because they are too distracting. Carson loves that his family’s live’s revolve around him racing, but he doesn’t know any different. At 12 years old, he states that he “don’t really have many friends because I doesn’t have any time for them.”
With over 30 races and appearances spanning from Las Vegas to North Carolina already on the books for 2022, it is shaping up to be another incredibly busy and stressful time for this young family. Carson is always the youngest person in any race he competes in and if he were to win one of the races he is going to compete in, he will be the youngest in history to do so. This young man has said he wanted to be racecar driver since he was 2.5 years old. A decade later he still has his eye on the prize and is willing to do whatever it takes to get there…even if that means giving up his entire childhood.