Scarlett Putney stood behind her purple No. 87X go-kart and suited up like a warrior heading into battle: helmet, gloves, neck brace, chest protector. The petite, gap-toothed 8-year-old from East Corinth zipped up her abrasion-resistant driving suit while her mother, Melissa, tightened the girl’s blond pigtails. Meanwhile, her father, Brian, gave her miniature race car a final once-over before Scarlett’s first heat on a Wednesday evening at Rocky Ridge Raceway in Graniteville.
The third grader looked unfazed by the cacophonous whine of two-stroke engines surrounding her as Brian fired up her kart in the starting lineup. Once the track official opened the chain-link gate, Scarlett lowered her visor and pulled onto the asphalt, then awaited the green flag signaling the start of the race.
“She had an accident at the beginning of the season,” Melissa said. “It scared her a little bit, but then she went out and raced again … Since then, she’s been getting faster.”
Scarlett wasn’t hurt in her crash, Melissa said. She came around a sharp curve and rear-ended a stopped kart. Do Scarlett’s parents get nervous watching their little girl zip around the serpentine course with other young drivers at up to 40 miles per hour?
“Oh, yeah. Every time!” her father said with a hearty laugh.
Tucked amid the pines just minutes from the granite sheds of Barre, Rocky Ridge is Vermont’s only speedway built exclusively for go-karts. There, drivers as young as 4 can get their first taste of organized motorsports, complete with electronic scoring, flaggers, transponders and even a race announcer, broadcast over a low-power FM radio signal for spectators.
It’s not just kids and teens battling it out for the checkered flag, either. Rocky Ridge has six classes in which drivers can compete based on their age and experience, ranging from preschoolers to seniors.
So it’s no surprise that Rocky Ridge draws a crowd to its Wednesday-night races. Held every other week from mid-May to mid-September, they’re free to watch, tailgate-style, from a grassy hillside overlooking the track. Or fans can pay $10 for admission to the pit area. Anywhere from 40 to 60 drivers routinely show up with racing trailers, pop-up tents and their own go-karts to burn rubber around the 910-foot paved racecourse.
After Scarlett competed in the 8- to 12-year-old class, her father, who has driven stock cars and Formula 4s, climbed into his own kart to race against drivers his own size.
Among them was Brian’s brother-in-law, James Huff of Randolph, whose 9-year-old son, Jimmy, took up karting earlier this year and now competes in the same class as Scarlett. After the cousins raced, their fathers went head-to-head in the Senior Lights class, where karts can reach speeds of 60 miles per hour.
“This is my first season, too,” Huff said. “We’re learning together.”
Unlike amusement park go-kart tracks, Rocky Ridge doesn’t offer rentals. The cost of a race-ready go-kart is comparable to that of a decent mountain bike. A used entry-level kart for kids runs $1,200 to $1,500, not including the trailer, dolly, parts and fuel. A used adult kart can cost $3,000. The kids and less experienced racers drive single-gear karts, but the most seasoned competitors race high-performance shifter karts, which have a six-speed manual gearbox and clutch and more closely mimic professional race cars. At Rocky Ridge, shifter-kart drivers change gears, on average, 12 times per lap, and races last 15 to 25 laps.
Rocky Ridge is a passion project of owner Jeff Blow, who built the track 20 years ago. The 70-year-old lifelong Barre resident grew up watching stock-car racing at the city’s Thunder Road International Speedbowl, where he first encountered go-karts.
Blow, who now owns and operates several local printing companies, ran a shifter-kart racing series, multiple races held in a single day, that traveled to tracks around the region, including Thunder Road; the now-defunct Sugar Hill Speedway in Weare, N.H.; and New York Race Complex in Morristown, N.Y.
After 12 years of traveling, Blow asked some of the local drivers if they would support a permanent raceway in Vermont for go-karts only. When two dozen drivers said they would, Blow began construction of Rocky Ridge on 64 acres in spring 2006. Practices started that June, and the first races in July.
For its first decade, Rocky Ridge failed to turn a profit. Most Sundays drew no more than 10 drivers, and Blow pitched in money just to pay the bills. “When the economy took a dive in 2008,” he added, “everything went to hell.”
By 2018, Blow realized he was facing too much competition for families’ summer weekends from camps, vacations and sports teams, so he switched his races from Sundays to Wednesday nights. He rented a few light towers and held four racing events in six weeks. In no time, his driver count jumped to 40 per week. This year, that would be a low turnout.
Rocky Ridge has a family-friendly vibe, with multiple generations showing up to race, tailgate or just lend a hand. The amenities are sparse: a single set of metal bleachers, a few portable toilets and a couple of food trucks. Blow noted that the races wouldn’t happen without his 11 volunteers, who serve as flaggers, scorekeepers, EMTs and pit stewards.
While the raceway still doesn’t turn much of a profit, Blow said he’s never been in it for the money. It’s all about creating a multigenerational community of racing and, for the more ambitious, a pipeline to more advanced motorsports.
“We really focus on the little kids, getting everybody out on the track and making it a fun family affair,” said race director Brandon Emerson, 30, who’s been coming to Rocky Ridge since he was 15 and got his 5-year-old son, Baylor, racing when he was only 3. “It’s a place to learn skills and meet friends.”
Despite the spartan offerings, Rocky Ridge routinely attracts drivers from as far away as New Hampshire and Plattsburgh and Albany, N.Y. Among the newcomers on a recent Wednesday was David Nessralla, 52, and his son Antoine, 15, of Norfolk, Mass., both of whom got into karting earlier this year. David had hoped to race that day himself but couldn’t find a kart to accommodate his six-foot, six-inch frame.
A few years ago, after Antoine got interested in professional auto racing, David donated a run-down go-kart to his school’s mechanics club, of which Antoine is a member. The kart sat in their garage for four months while the school figured out a place to store it, so the father and son got it running, then brought it to a speedway in Canaan, N.H. The day they delivered the used kart to Antoine’s school, David bought his son a new one.
Watching Antoine take practice laps at Rocky Ridge, David observed, “This course is tight, and there are some aggressive drivers. If you’re not paying attention, they come at you like a swarm of hornets.”
That said, David was quick to point out how friendly and helpful everyone was. When the father and son arrived at Rocky Ridge earlier that day, they realized they needed to re-gear Antoine’s kart to suit the course, which is windier and hillier than the one they race on in New Hampshire.
“I’m mechanically inclined, but I’m not a mechanic,” David said. “I know how to put gasoline in and pull the starter, and that’s about it.” Three local volunteers helped the duo swap out their gears.
Antoine still struggled on the challenging course. Coming through an S-curve, he overshot a turn and landed in the grass, but he took it in stride.
“Hey, it’s my first time. It’s a learning experience,” he said later.
Video Courtesy of Rocky Ridge Raceway
How safe is Rocky Ridge? Despite the high speeds and inexperienced drivers, Blow insisted that two decades of races have never resulted in so much as a broken bone. All drivers are required to wear helmets, gloves, driving suits, closed shoes and chest protectors, the last in case a piece of equipment flies off another kart. As in stock-car racing, all karts are inspected and weighed to ensure that they conform to track specs.
For safety reasons, Blow maintains a “cold pit,” meaning that competitors aren’t allowed to drive through the pit area. Instead, they must push their karts to the course entrance, often on mechanical dollies that resemble hospital gurneys.
While Rocky Ridge may look like child’s play, many competitive race car drivers got their start there. Tanner Woodard, the 2024 White Mountain Motorsports Park late-model champion, used to race at Rocky Ridge, Blow noted, as did Emily Packard and brothers Jaden and Jamon Perry, familiar names at Thunder Road. Blow estimated that at least 40 percent of the drivers at Thunder Road and White Mountain started in competitive go-kart racing.
Most racers at Rocky Ridge don’t harbor dreams of going on to NASCAR glory, though. They’re simply looking for an evening of excitement and fun. Said David, “What’s more American than gas fumes and squealing tires?” ➆
The original print version of this article was headlined “Whiz Kids | At Rocky Ridge Raceway, go-kart drivers as young as 4 get a taste of life in the fast lane”
This article appears in September 9 • 2026.
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