Hunter Scott Brayton’s go-kart flipped, sending him sliding helmet-first down the track into foam-rubber safety bags.
Hunter’s father, Todd, a former International Motor Sports Association driver, wasn’t sure he wanted any more of his son’s racing career, either.
But Hunter got up, dusted himself off, checked his torn race suit and unbuckled his scraped-up helmet, the visor suffering from a serious case of road rash.
This was June, and the next weekend, Hunter made up for the disappointment. He won his first national kart race at Michiana Raceway Park, showing he has inherited the Brayton passion for racing, handed down from his grandfather Lee Brayton to uncle Scott Brayton and his dad, Todd.
Todd, 47, was driving to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway from his home in Coldwater on May 17, 1996, when he heard on the radio that his brother Scott had been killed during practice for the Indy 500. He had planned to play golf with Scott, who had won the pole position for the race, and had Scott’s golf clubs in his car.
After losing a brother, why allow your only child to go racing?
“I do have a lot of people look at me and say: ‘How could you let your son do that—race?’” Todd said. “But we’re not parents who forced him to drive. He just took to it like a duck to water on a pond.”
Hunter will compete next at MRP in the Mini-Max class Oct. 3-4. He finished third there in his last outing in August during a World Karting Association weekend. He has years ahead of him in karts before he can switch to open-wheel cars, but there’s no holding him back.
“I want to be like Scott, Dad and Grandpa,” said Hunter, a fifth-grade student at Quincy Middle School. “I like winning. I like the speed. And I like to beat my friends. I’m behind in points right now, and I just want to get better.”
Since starting seriously in karts in 2008, Hunter has shown the right stuff to take him a long way as a racer.
At his grandfather’s race shop in Coldwater this week, he looked every bit an Indy driver as he sunk into Scott’s white Penske PC6 Cosworth, which Scott drove to 16th place as a rookie at Indy in 1981 after running as high as ninth.
“I want to race at Indy,” Hunter said. “I want to win an Indy 500 for Scott.”
