Grayson Cooksey is too fast and too on track to be an ordinary fourth grader. When asked to identify the crucial decisions one makes when racing, he slyly says, “You have to get in front of the rest.” As a member of the Cooksey Racing clan, he tears up the dust in his 600cc micro-sprint car, and it’s not all for show. On February 10, at Marion County Speedway, Grayson placed second to one of his good friends, NASCAR star Kyle Busch’s son, Brexton. One of the perks of being pals with a professional stock car driver is that you can tool around in their equipment, which Grayson had the opportunity to do at Millbridge Speedway, driving Brexton’s spare box stock car. He has a memento to mark the occasion: A photo of him and Kyle, his favorite NASCAR driver, posing in front of one of the Cooksey micros, thumbs held high.

Since second grade, Grayson has enjoyed the thrill of micro-sprint racing. For those not in the know, a micro sprint car is a miniature version of a full-sized sprint car designed for racing on smaller, usually dirt tracks. These compact, open-wheel cars pack a punch with high-powered motorcycle engines, allowing them to achieve remarkable speeds despite their size. Despite reaching speeds of up to 85 mph on 1/6 - 1/4 mile tracks, Grayson says he’s only nervous when driving a new rig for the first time. Speed is an adaptation, he explains. He’s cautious until he can understand how to manage the additional horsepower. However, once he tames the mechanical beast, it’s in everyone’s interest to watch out.

Wayne County Speedway and Port City Raceway in Tulsa, OK, are among his favorite racing venues. Even in his fledgling years as a competitive racer, he’s already adapted to the different conditions on several tracks nationwide. Displaying a characteristic cool, Grayson tells us the story of when he encountered one factor on the speedway that’s difficult to account for: the collision. Contact with a fellow racer’s back tire spun Grayson’s micro sideways, and he flipped “five or six times” by his count.

While this might shake up most of us, Grayson is a chill dude; he shakes it off instead. He’s reminded of Kyle Busch in the Round of 12 opener at Texas Motor Speedway, whose rear-end snapped and spun him into hard contact with the outside wall. “It seems like every time I try, something happens,” Busch told NBC then. Setbacks are inevitable, in other words.

That may be why the path to the finish line is rarely linear and almost always circular. Grayson already understands this, and though he can’t predict everything that will happen in the blitz of burnt rubber, dust, and engine exhaust, he takes after his NASCAR hero’s preparation and adaptability to maneuver around any unfavorable outcome and pass that checkered flag as it waves him home. And we think that if that’s a metaphor for Grayson’s unfolding life, that’d be okay too.