It’s no secret most motorsports drivers began their careers in karting, and the longest running karting center is in Riverside County – Adams Motorsports Park – operated by this rising star’s parents, Troy and Kara Adams.

By Zoran J. Segina

Truly Adams is in the second decade of his international racing career.

To retain his competitive edge, Truly maintains an intense schedule—cardio exercises every morning followed by a strength training in the afternoon.

He spends hours on the racing simulator to memorize the tracks, determine the braking points, apex entries, and hone his skills.

He studies technical characteristics of the cars he is driving to help mechanics make adjustments to improve performance.

He also attends interviews and fundraising events, travels around the world, and is learning French.

Truly is 15 years old.

A Star is Rising

He does not recall the beginnings. He was only three in his father Troy’s lap while being driven around the family-owned Adams Motorsports kart track in Riverside.

Troy’s hot laps session was promptly black-flagged by his wife Kara who showed up and noticed that the kid did not wear a helmet.

Truly’s first formal outing took place at the Santa Maria karting event where Troy was a director. After having been pestered with questions why Truly doesn’t race, Kara paid what she deemed to be an outrageously high $650 entry fee and entered Truly on the grid.

He came in third. He was four.

Formula One on his Mind

Truly’s dream is to become a Formula One race car driver. It helps that Troy is a former NASCAR Southwest Section racer, and a prominent racing coach.

It also helps that a family owns the 66-year-old Adams karting facility in Riverside where Truly can run lap after lap and session after session to perfect entry into corners and develop that seat-of-the pants feeling for the race car that only comes after thousands of laps and years of practice.

All Formula One drivers started in go karts because of the power-to-weight ratio. It matters little how powerful an engine is, but how much weight that engine moves around.

A modern F1 car has power-to-weight ratio of about 0.56 lbs per horsepower—i.e, a 1000 hp engine has to move about 1,700 lbs of weight.

A professional kart because of its minuscule size has power-to-weight ratio of 0.6 making the ride dynamics close to that of an F1 car.

For comparison, a 2,995-pound Toyota Corolla would need a 1,800 horsepower engine to achieve the same ratio.

Parental Adjustment

Having spent years racing and coaching, Troy is aware of sacrifices and financial commitment and vowed that his newborn son will never get into racing.

As for Kara, watching Truly and other tykes going around the track at 20 mph is fun at first, the little racers are simply adorable. But the kids grow up, the karts get more powerful and, in time, her son is piloting a shifter kart 3 inches of the ground at speeds of 70 to 80 mph on a straightaway.

The Adams kart track record is 46 seconds for 7/10 of a mile translating to an average speed of over 55 miles per hour.

Kara has developed breathing techniques to calm her nerves and relies on her son’s exceptional driving skills that should keep him out of trouble.

Not a Piece of Cake

A trek to the pinnacle of open wheel racing is arduous and expensive.

First, Truly had to enroll in the Skip Barber Formula 4 racing school and pass written and medical exam to obtain his SCCA racing license.

Car racing is one of the most physically demanding activities, and drivers have to be in top shape. Roman Grosjean a former HAAS F1 team driver once remarked that racing karts was physically more exhausting then Formula One.

A driver’s hearth rate routinely exceeds 100 beats per minute during the race. Bracing against G forces which in karts reach 2.5 to 3.6 could crack driver’s ribs.

Kart drivers now wear corsets to protect themselves. Truly must do daily cardio exercises and weightlifting for strength. An exercise device to strengthen his neck muscles – a strap around the head weighted by several kilos on each side looks like it came from a Dracula’s torture chamber.

F1 vs NASCAR

Troy would have preferred that Truly opted for the career in NASCAR. The alumni of the Adams karting program include Colton Herta, Jeff Ward, Noah Gragson, Riley Herbst and many others. With Troy, having been in NASCAR, the support base would have been broader. But Truly prefers left and right corners and open wheel racing.

Pursuing Formula One career requires steady and constant improvement. Truly raced in Mexico and Europe.

The FEED Volant 4

While racing karts in the Champions of the Future Academy, the Adams’ met Ludovic Pezze, an owner of the driver management and development company in France. Ludo thought it would be a great way to see Truly’s potential by enrolling him in the FEED Volant 4 racing program run by a 1997 Formula One world champion Jacques Villeneuve and 2001 ELMS champion Patrick Lemarié.

The program sells out, but Ludo worked with the organizers to hold the seat for Truly.

The FEED program at Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours in France is a five-day long racing school and a competition. The program starts with 60 drivers and is then narrowed down to 24 plus 6 wildcards.

Two weeks later there are semifinals followed by the finals another two weeks later. The last stage includes six top drivers on a full 2.74-mile Formula 1 track. The Adams family logged quite a few international frequent flyers miles last fall.

All the students drive Formula 4 spec race cars with adjustable front and rear wings weighing 580 kilograms with the driver. The powerplant is a 1.3-liter turbo engine developing between 160 and 180 horsepower with a rev limiter at about 6000 RPM. The idea is to keep the students in as identical cars as possible to eliminate mechanical advantage and discover true talent.

Making the Cut

Of the 60 drivers who started the program Truly ended up on the podium. In this Sorbonne of car racing, he graduated in the top five percent of his class. What really got everyone’s attention was Truly’s final Blanche classification (three-lap average) where he ranked P2 logging 1.52.297 and Battle 2 (3 lap average) where he topped the session with 1.47.714.

There is no grade inflation, or fake credentials in this educational program. The stopwatch is a cruel but objective taskmaster. Truly’s calling card is simple: Magny-Cours, F4 Feed Volant 2025, 1.47.714. His success is based on a hard number and not any preferential treatment.

Formula One is always on a lookout for fresh talent. Is there, among millions of kids, another Michael Schumacher, Ayrton Senna, or Lewis Hamilton? When objective results reveal a potential candidate people take notice. Jacques wrote a wonderful introduction letter, and telephone started ringing.

Challenges Remain

But challenges remain. Truly may spend the 2026 racing season in one of the European formula feeding circuits – either Spanish Formula 4 or British Formula Ford—to hone his wet driving skills. Or he could continue testing with Patrick, in France or run in the F4 series in the United States.

If successful, he will have to find a seat in the Formula 3 competition for the next two years to obtain enough points for his FIA racing license. From there he will have to figure out a way to join a Formula 2 team and show that his results are good enough for a potential contract as a reserve driver with one of the current eleven Formula One teams.

The Bottom Line

Doing all of this takes money. A Formula 4 season expenses are between $200,000 and $300,000 – if he drives in Britain the number climbs to $445,000. Truly’s competitors are already testing in Europe and joining them now would raise the number to $800.000.

A Formula 3 season requires about $700,000, climbing to $2.0 million in Formula 2. A set of F4 tires cost $1500. Truly needs four sets per race weekend or 30 sets per season.

Then there are travelling expenses, mechanics, spare parts, fuel, entry fees, and of course the race car itself.

Unless you are Lance Stroll and your father bought an Aston Martin F1 team so you can drive, fundraising will be an integral part of pursuing the dream.

Pursuing the Dream

Fortunately, Truly is good at it. He started at the age of twelve when Kara and Troy instructed their son that if he wanted to continue racing he better get some funds.

Truly has Simpson racing gear manufacturer and Alignis among his sponsors. Bnevo over last three years donated $70,000 to the goal.

Formula One is a global phenomenon and the current roster of drivers includes names from all over the world but there are no Americans, no women, and one black driver – No. 44 Lewis Hamilton – seven-time world champion.

After 18 seasons, however, a 40-year-old Lewis will eventually retire from the active competition. To expand the F1 viewership, the Aston Martin hired American Jak Crawford as the replacement driver, and the new Cadillac team did the same with Colton Herta.

The F1 organization runs F1 Academy for women drivers seeking to find another Maria de Villota, a test driver for Marussia team who could have ended up as the first woman in Formula One had she not succumb to her injuries shortly after crashing during a straight-line testing in October of 2013.

Making No. 47 the Next No. 44

As for the replacement for No. 44 Lewis Hamilton—whether that is No. 47 Truly Adams remains to be seen. There are challenges beyond his control. This six-foot-tall teenager with an infectious smile must diet so as not to exceed Formula 1 car minimum weight of 800 kilograms with a driver but without fuel.

Add an extra pound and he is uncompetitive, subtract a pound from the minimum and he is disqualified. Moreover, if he continues growing, he may be too tall for a tight cockpit of the Formula One car.

Truly seeks to excel in an incredibly competitive sport with the 10 closest finishes beyond 10th of a second. The timers now count down to 1000/th of a second. An F1 team that spends $100 to $200 million per season seeks a driver who can recoup some of these expenses.

The F1 organization remunerates the teams based on their cumulative points at the end of the 24-race season. If Truly’s results lift his team in the constructors’ championship by one place—i.e., from sixth to fifth, they will receive additional $9.0 million.

Sweat, Deprivation and Hard Work

Before every race, as the drivers are strapped in the cockpits, the camera pans around the starting grid focusing on their eyes—the only visible part before the visors come down.

Look closely and their eyes reflect years of sweat, deprivation, hard work, many disappointments and tremendous willpower it took to get these men where they are.

Each driver had to provide his coach with answers to the questions Troy asks John “John” McClennan, Hailey Deegan, and every one of his protégées: “Is this something you want, or are you here to satisfy your parents,” and “Do you want this so much that you are ready for pain and suffering it will take to lift you to the level you are not ever aware you can reach?”

In a minute or so the drivers will lower the visors, complete the warmup lap, and then hurl themselves toward the first corner, their hearts beating at 150 beats per minute.

Using the skills perfected over the years each one of them will struggle try to keep his car on the edge of adhesion battling the laws of physics that try to harm them and damage their equipment.

This intense game of millimeters will lasts for almost two hours. Or in the case of 24 hours Le Mans for two days. Michael Andretti allegedly remarked: “If you are comfortable in the race car you are too slow.”

Fast Forward to the Future

It is a warm June day on the Riviera. A young driver just left his Le Millefiori apartment on Rue Des Genets in Monte Carlo and is walking to the paddock area.

He dreamt of living on a yacht in the inner harbor, but Monte Carlo harbormaster’s regulations do not allow permanent liveaboards. From the early morning the mechanics have been working on his No. 47 machine which qualified well in the middle of the grid for the Grand Prix of Monaco 203…

The American is new to the F1, but more and more passersby recognize him. During the pre-race events the reporters will undoubtedly ask whether he is stepping into the shoes of the legendary No. 44 who recently retired.

The young driver will reply with his disarming smile, glance toward his mom and dad in the paddock, before he puts on a golden Stilo helmet with the emblazoned lettering -Truly Adams, The United States of America.

The writer is Senior Editor of LA CAR.