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Under the Hood of this father-son go-kart team
Behind a quiet disposition lies an absolute thunderbolt of young racing talent, following in his father's footsteps. Nine-year-old Ryan Digney may not say much out loud, but he has been saying how much he loves to race in his first season of racing go-karts. With his 2021 Intrepid cart, he has been tearing up the track in the 12-race season with the South Sask. Kart Club. He has fallen in love with the world of automotive speed. When asked what he liked about it, he kept it short and sweet. "It's just fun," said Ryan. Under the hood- well, if there was a hood, is an 8.8 horsepower 206 Briggs and Stratton engine. This unit may be small, but it has a surprising amount of power to give the 170-pound cart. With a power-to-weight ratio of 0.052, Ryan has achieved speeds of up to 84 kilometres per hour. Digney's father, Reece Digney, is the main man behind Ryan when it comes to the go-kart. He picked up the current kart Ryan uses for $3,500, and has been coaching him to the point where the 9-year-old is faster than the 38-year-old who got him started. "He got me into it," said Ryan. The father-son duo began seeing if Ryan had an appetite for speed in Gimli, Manitoba, where the family was watching full-size vehicles in a Time Attack format. "Ryan here got really, really, into it," recalled Reece. "So we thought, what can we do to get him into it?" After coming across the SSKC online, Reece fired off a few emails discussing the possibility of Ryan racing a kart with the league. "The president there was super helpful and helped get us set up," said Reece. Reece is a kart racer himself and was the person who inspired Ryan to choose his number 86. "But I've kind of slowed down on my karting since Ryan's now more than two seconds faster than me," said Reece. Now, the father half of the duo focuses more on being the pit chief while the son races. He has been proud to watch as Ryan has gone from 1:11 laps to 1:03 flat. "We're hoping to drop some more time," said Reece. "There's one more race at the end of the month, and then it's winter hibernation." The Digney's encouraged anyone who finds go-karts, or racing in general, to be interesting to look into getting their own kart together. Reece cited entry-level builds for the sport that cost as low as $1,500 for people looking to get started. "The sky is the limit," said Reece. "You can spend as much as you really want to, or it's a lot more cost-effective than getting into actual motor racing." One of the benefits Reece sees for Ryan as his parent is that it gives him the chance to not only meet his fears, but to take them on. "How to have control, meet challenges, and build character," said Reece. "He's kind of a shyer kid, and this is the one thing we find really takes him out of that, and busts him out of his shell." Ryan is still excited to go racing and is looking forward to taking on his final race of the summer. Hopefully, he continues to share his love for the sport with his father, and they can continue to build memories that will last a lifetime, long after it feels like these summer days have disappeared in the rearview mirror.