Ecidro Aldana has already met the biggest challenges a 6-year-old can find on the race track.

In March, he finished as champion of the Chowchilla Barn Burner Kart series in Chowchilla, and in September, he won the championship trophy from the 2011 Cora Speedway Beginner Box series in Dixon.

Now, the Central School first-grader is set to go after bigger challenges.

On Nov. 19, he took third place in his first race in the Junior Outlaws division, which is a step up to a new age group, even though he could continue racing at the entry level.

Ecidro’s grandfather, Adrian Aldana, said it was a little bit intimidating, considering that the other racers in that division are 10 and 11 years old.

“I tell him, ‘You’re the same size they are when you’re in the car,” Adrian Aldana said.

Ecidro was able to prove that in his first Junior Outlaw race at Cora Speedway, winning the first heat so that he could start on the pole for the main event. He led the crowd until he got tangled up with a car he was preparing to lap, ending up in third place for the day.

When the new season starts in the spring, Ecidro will be back in a new car, a mini-sprint car capable of doing 50 to 55 mph on a quarter-mile track. Adrian Aldana said the boy also plans to race at Delta Speedway in Stockton in the Junior Sprint series.

His experience this past year shows that Ecidro’s ready for the next level, even if it means a venture into a higher age group. He won most of the main events in the 14-race Beginner Box series in Dixon, including several sweeps of the first and second heats, trophy dash and main events on the one-fifth-mile clay track.

“He also won money. Each night, it was 10 bucks a car. Some nights, it was seven or eight cars,” Adrian Aldana said.

To get the racer ready for the new series, his grandfather bought a car from John Rodriguez, who provided Ecidro’s car for the beginner series. It will run on a five-horsepower Briggs & Stratton motor.

“That one’s going to be full suspension,” Adrian said. “It has a different motor, which is called a World Formula motor. That one is just a little bit slower, but it’s a momentum car.”

Adrian Aldana said that Ecidro took to the new car right away, which is promising for the upcoming season.

“He likes winning money, and he likes racing. The speed doesn’t bother him. He’s going to be pretty good,” he said. “We opened up a lot of people’s eyes last weekend with that motor and that car.”