RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Formerly known as Adams Kart Track, Adams Motorsport Park in Riverside has been in operation for over 60 years, making it one of the longest continuously running kart racing facilities in the world.

Throughout this time, the track has been owned and operated by multiple generations of a single family.

Originally created to keep his children from racing a newly gifted go-kart in the street, the grandfather of current owner Troy Adams turned acres of farmland into a race track in 1960. Two years later, the family went into business.

Adams and his wife Kara have since developed the track into one of the fastest growing grassroots racing facilities in the U.S., opening the track not just to go-karts, but to cars and motorcycles as well. Due to working and fulfilling duties at the track as a child, Adams wasn't able to race the go-karts, but that didn't stop him from pursuing his racing dreams in the early 2000s.

Although Adams Motorsports Park has a long history in the racing community, the same cannot be said for African Americans in professionagl racing. Adams experienced this racism firsthand.

"I’ve won and beat a lot of my counterparts but yet still did not get to ride, and it was for multiple reasons," said Adams. "Yes we can say it’s the color of my skin. I would say that’s probably the number one reason. But it was also the financial backing that I didn’t have."

Despite this negativity, Adams recalls his time in professional racing as some of the most exhilarating of his life, and an experience he learned from.

“It forced me to deal with some of the negativity on the track but then also learn that those negative things that happened to me, that I could turn those negatives into a positive for a lot of other kids and a lot of other athletes in the future,” said Adams.

One of those athletes is his 10-year-old son Truly, who currently races under his father’s guidance. Adams and his wife originally made the decision that they wouldn't encourage their children to go into racing, but by the time Truly was 2 years old, Adams was driving around the track with his son in his lap. From that moment on, Truly fell in love with racing, and one of his current goals is to be a Formula One driver like his role model, Lewis Hamilton.

Knowing that some of the unjust, racist negativity that he experienced is still present in motorsports, Adams makes sure to have conversations with his son about what it means to take pride in being Black.

"As I’ve told him, 'You’re Black. You’ve got to be proud that you're Black. You’ve got to race with your head up high, and at the end of the day, we’ll let everything shake out the way it’s supposed to shake out.'"