Already a champion Kolt Kinsler is pictured with the two cars he raced this year - junior sprint and 600 restrictor modified midget. He won the points championship in the smaller car, and placed third in the 600 sprint. He raced both cars every Saturday night at the Miami County Speedway in Peru. Comet photo by Jennifer Archibald At 11 years old, Kolt Kinsler of Delphi has a need for speed.

It earned him three trophies at the recent Miami County Speedway awards banquet.

He won the points championship in junior sprint and came in third place in the 600 restrictor modified midget.

Kolt was the youngest driver this season in the 600 sprint. Most of his other competitors were teenagers.

At Peru, Kolt is the first person to ever race the junior and the 600 the same night. He raced both cars in every points race (over 90 laps per night), moving back and forth from the bigger car to the smaller car. In all the points races, with both cars, he didn't have one DNF (did not finish). For this accomplishment, he received a special award, the Double Play Golden Cup.

This season, at Peru, Kolt won 12 feature races, 18 heat races and 15 trophy dashes.

He started racing junior sprints in 2007, finishing a close second in the points championship. Now, since he's won the first place trophy in junior sprints, he said his goal is to win the championship in the restrictor class.

His parents, Tony and Renee Kinsler, said Kolt started riding a dirt bike at age two.

"He could ride it, but he couldn't stop it, so we had to stop him," Renee said.

He started racing at age four - dirt bike hill climbing. He won the Indiana State District 15 Hill Climb championship in 2005.

Kolt also took up motocross racing and continued that even into 2008.

He has won several races in hill climbing and motocross. He competed in hill climbing at Cayuga, Goshen, and Nashville. His motocross racing has been at Wildcat Creek MX in Rossville.

In his race cars, he has competed mostly at Peru, but also at Camden Speedway and at US 24 Speedway at Lake Cicott.

Kolt has flipped his car twice while racing - once last year and once this year - but wasn't hurt.

"Both times he was able to continue," Tony said. "Last year he flipped once, we turned him over, and he still won the race."

Racing is a family commitment of time and money. The season is April through September, and Kolt races every weekend. For a typical Saturday night race at Peru, Tony said he and Kolt leave home about 2 p.m. on Saturday and don't return until around 11:30 p.m. or midnight. Kolt's mother, Renee, and his younger brothers, Kaleb and Kooper, come separately. They bring the food and provide the Kolt cheering section.

Tony said this season he spent Saturday mornings cleaning and checking the cars, and he worked on them all summer. He said soon he'll be involving Kolt in the car mechanics.

Owning and maintaining the cars is expensive so the Kinslers said they appreciate their sponsors: Kinsler Car Clinic, Morrow Shoe Shop, Carroll Drywall, Abbott Funeral Home, Cleaver Family Farms, Baldwin Automotive (NAPA), Atlas Excavating, Wildcat Creek MX, Landrum Springs, Den-Mar Wings, and Bailey Chassis. Tony said other big supporters are Rick and Lucille (Grandma) Reed, Herbi and Harold Johnson, and Jason Myers.

Racing is a tradition in the Kinsler family. Both Tony and his father, the late Steve Kinsler, raced modified midgets in the 1990s. Kolt's brother, Kaleb, age nine, will start racing junior sprint next year, and the family is anticipating that Kooper, age 4, will start racing in two to three years.

Kolt says the things he likes best about racing are: "it's fun, going fast, winning, and hanging out with my friends." His favorite race car drivers are Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

He's in sixth grade this year at Delphi Community Middle School. He gets good grades, and he says his favorite subject is math.

Next year he plans to just race the bigger car, with his eye on the championship.