For most people, a trip to the go kart track is generally reserved for birthday parties or a little family fun. But for those with a serious need for speed, tracks such as K1 Speed in Rogers, Arkansas allow lead foots of all ages to take it to the next level in competitive leagues.
That’s exactly how Cason Collyar of Van Buren, Arkansas found his passion in life, something those who know him best say he was born to do. Visiting K1 Speed basically on a whim, Cason was immediately taken with the sport of racing and more than that, he was really good at it, blowing out kids his own age as well as smoking adults on the track.
“Well, I heard there was a new go kart track opening up in Rogers. So, I went there, I got a card, an invitation to the league that they have,” says the soft-spoken teenager. “I decided to join and that’s where it really kicked off.”
Cason’s nonchalance doesn’t do his accomplishments justice. Not only is he all-but-unbeatable on his home track, especially among the occasional weekend warriors who come out to race, but he’s a stalwart in league play among fellow competitors.
The teen racing prodigy says the learning curve was fairly smooth and something he picked up right away.
“What was hard to learn was the force pulling on you and knowing ‘Oh, I could get hurt in this,’ instead of just being on a video game with a controller and spinning out crashing,” he says. “When you crash in a kart, it hurts.”
Crashes have been few and far between for Cason, as his résumé attests. Starting in the junior age division, he took first in the league and second in state racing, sending him to the national meet. His first nationals didn’t pan out that well and inspired him to practice and get better.
Next time out, he moved up to the teen division, again qualifying for the national race. There, he placed eighth in the elite A-Main pool qualifier and placed sixth nationally in the final. None of this surprises K1 Speed’s franchise owner, Buster Vanhoosen, who spotted Cason’s potential right away.
“Getting to meet Cason for the first time and his family, I mean, you could tell that racing runs in their blood just like it runs in mine. They’re addicted to cars and going fast,” says Buster. “He absolutely stood out right away. You can see it in him; he’s got the attitude of a professional race car driver and the determination to win.
“You can read it all over Cason’s face. He kind of gets that wave across him where you’re like, ‘Oh, hey, it’s race time.’”
Cason first discovered a love for racing and competition as a youngster racing radio-controlled cars. His mother, Casey, recalls with a laugh the looks on the faces of his fellow competitors seeing an elementary school-aged kid literally running laps around them.
“He started out racing remote controlled control cars (RCC) cars at GS Hobby in Barling, Arkansas,” she says. “It was 2020, and he’s just kicking tail. This was RCC, where it’s all hand-eye coordination and I there were grown men standing next to him asking, ‘Where did this kid come from?’”
Cason was just starting to outgrow the activity when his grandfather, Terry Carson, took him to the K1 Speed facility to check out the go karts.
“I wasn’t there with them,” Casey says. “(Terry) brought him home and said, ‘Hey, Cason’s going to join the league. Here’s how much it is, and I’ll make sure he gets to league racing nights.’”
Racing sounds like an expensive pastime, and it can be, but at the junior level that basically came down to expenses for travelling to practice and competition. At the teen division where Cason now drives, safety equipment such as a fire suit and special helmet is required due to the speeds the karts can reach at that level.
“The karts that are here locally go forty-five miles per hour,” Cason says, again as calm as talking fishing. “The ones at nationals go eighty miles per hour.”
Racers don’t foot the bill on the cars themselves because in order to keep it fair, vehicles are issued to drivers at the competition. This eliminates racers from making modifications to give them an advantage, but it doesn’t necessarily mean all the karts are created equally. K1 Speed does their best to have evenly matched cars, however sometimes one may have better tires or a stronger battery, but it comes down to the talent of the driver.
Whatever the equipment or conditions, it’s hard to imagine Cason any different than the laid-back, man-of-few-words that he comes across as in interviews. After all, it is that level-headedness that everyone on Team Cason agrees is part of his gift on the track.
“Well, in a race, you just got to be calm and if something happens, you just got to move on and keep on driving,” Cason says. “If you get upset and angry, you’ll make a mistake and that just makes the situation worse.”
“Cason has been this way his entire life. Just cool,” Casey says. “Came into this world early, six weeks early as a preemie twin, and has just been chill all the time. It drives me crazy because I am just a very excited person; I’m in sales, go, go, go. Cason’s just chill.”
His father, Travis, says that calmness is rooted in something deeper. “Cason has a natural, God-given faith,” he says. “He truly cares about others, how they feel, and how they are being treated.” Travis points to the verse James 1:19 — “Be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger” — as one that reflects the way Cason approaches both racing and everyday life.
The past two years have been a wild ride for the whole family. While Cason was learning with each lap how to get better on the track, his family learned a few things of their own. Casey recalls with a groan how after Cason’s subpar outing at nationals as a junior, she made a fateful decision when he returned to the national event in the teen division.
“Junior league, smaller track, much slower karts, and it was honestly quite boring for his twin sister and I to watch. We love racing, but good grief, it was like six days of it,” she says. “Plus, it was on a track where he slid off in a turn and my heart went to my throat and I said, ‘I’m out. I won’t come back next year and watch this when he’s going eighty miles per hour.’ I told my husband and Cason, ‘You guys, go ahead, have a good time.’
“And so, what takes place, of course, I’m just hoping that he makes twentieth place to get into that A-Main to compete and he qualified eighth. At that point I thought, ‘Why did I not go to nationals? I’m a terrible mother!’”
The teenage years often bring shifting interests and hobbies, but not for Cason. His passion for racing remains as strong as ever. He travels to Rogers once a month to practice live, and admits he’d be on the track every day if he lived closer.
When he’s not racing in person, Cason stays behind the wheel through iRacing, a highly realistic e-sport that allows competitors to race in leagues with drivers from around the world. Using a full simulator he purchased with money earned from after-school jobs, he logs more than twenty hours a week honing his skills. His success has been so dominant in the amateur division that he is likely to move up to compete against older, more experienced racers.
The path is a familiar one in motorsports, with many NASCAR drivers using simulation racing as a steppingstone in their development. Whether it’s on the track, in the simulator, or watching races from every league and discipline on television, racing remains at the center of his world.
“I am most definitely a racing enthusiast away from the track,” he says. “I watch F1, NASCAR, IndyCar, you name it. My goal is to drive for Porsche Penske Motor Sports and hopefully win championships one day. Being with Porsche and Penske is the dream.” Fans can follow Cason on Instagram at Collyar.Racing, and YouTube at CJ.Collyar.Racing.
