John McLellan is not old enough to have a driver’s license at 13 years old, but the Redondo Beach teenager has been racing kart cars at speeds nearing 80 mph in Italy this month.
Last week, he had a breakthrough performance, finishing third among 117 drivers representing 33 countries at the FIA Karting World Cup OK-N Junior Final at Leopard Circuit Viterbo, Italy.
His father, John Sr., sent him to Italy for four weeks to compete for Sweden-based Ward Racing.
“Dad is on him all the time,” his father said. “Do your homework, brush your teeth.”
“Yes and yes,” John Jr. said this week after returning home.
John Jr. is enrolled in a Texas-based online middle school to help with his unpredictable traveling schedule. He had been a club soccer player until deciding racing is what he wants to do.
First he was into motocross at age 6. After an accident resulting in a broken hand and broken collarbone, kart racing became his specialty, with a dream of racing Formula 1 cars.
His mother is from Australia and his father is a Torrance native who chose racing motorcycles over playing high school soccer. Like father, like son.
“He loves it,” John Sr. said. “What kid wouldn’t want to race cars?”
John said of the strangeness driving high speeds at 13: “Whenever you have a kid going 80 mph without a driver’s license and going to middle school, you would think that’s absolute carnage and crazy. Karting is just a very competitive sport.”
The average lap speeds are 56 mph. John wants to attend a regular high school when he enters ninth grade next year, so whether it’s Rolling Hills Prep or Redondo Union, new friends need to know they’re hanging out with a teenager who, as Tom Cruise said in “Top Gun,” “I feel the need ... the need for speed.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.