Outlane youngster Alex McDade is making a name for himself on the track after an impressive rookie season in competitive karting.
The 11-year-old, who is a student at Rishworth School, battled his way into the top ten in two classes in the national junior championships in his debut campaign.
Competing in both the Super One Rotax series and LGM series races, McDade has managed to finish sixth and ninth in the standings.
His first season has also brought a fair amount of travelling and while he has mainly competed at the PF International Kart circuit in Grantham, there have been trips as far afield as Cambridge, Devon and abroad to race in Spain.
His aim is to break into Super One karting, the route by which British Formula One drivers Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button learnt their craft.
Already McDade’s successes this season have seen him switch teams having started the season with the Eclipse Motorsport team, who are based at the PF International, but then moving having been offered the chance to drive with AIM Motorsport based in Stoke.
For the time being he is weighing up his options for next season, but proud mum Joanne is just happy that Alex has progressed so well in his first year of racing.
“It is a really outstanding achievement because there are 72 drivers in qualifying battling to make the races,” said Joanne.
“They are racing at around 75mph and with the classes worked out by both the age and weight of the drivers, it means Alex can be up against older drivers who have been racing for a couple of years.
“But he has done really well and we will just have to see how things go over the next couple of seasons and see how far he can go.”