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Already a 10-year veteran of round track racing, 15-year-old Austin Allen of Goddard is moving up from stock-bodied Hornet class race cars to the Modified ranks at 81 Speedway this season. He began racing in karts and hopes to be driving in NASCAR competition by the time he is 20.

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Mike Berry / Mike Berry

Racing is a family affair in the Allen family. Austin handles the driving duties, while his dad Chris, center, helps maintain the car and works with sponsorship, while Grandpa Carroll Allen, a former racer himself, shares track expertise garnered back in the 1970s.

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Mike Berry / Mike Berry

Austin Allen will be campaigning his #18 Modified in the Rookie division at 81 Speedway in the season that begins a week from today. His uncle, David Allen, did the sheet metal work on the car and provided the graphics.

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Mike Berry / Mike Berry

Austin Allen's newest ride is an upgrade 1999/2000 Dirt Works chassis supplied by Dennis Brewster, who is looking forward to seeing the youngest driver ever to climb into one of his cars compete this year.

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Mike Berry / Mike Berry

This is the view of #18 that young Austin Allen hopes most of his competitors will be seeing at 81 Speedway: the rear end.

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Mike Berry / Mike Berry

Austin Allen's workspace: the cockpit of his Chevy V-8 powered Modified racer. The car uses a purpose-built 2-speed racing transmission.

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Mike Berry / Mike Berry

Hoosier racing tires on slotted wheels will be slinging dirt, with power provided by a 383 cubic inch Chevy V-8 that Austin Allen estimates produces somewhere north of 500 horsepower.

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Mike Berry / Mike Berry

Driver Austin Allen prepares his #18 Modified dirt track racer for a photo shoot at Shoot Your Ride.com, a specialty photo studio that is part of Douglas Photographic Imaging. The car has been rolled onto a 6-ton auto lift that will carry it to the studio level.

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Mike Berry / Mike Berry

Young race car driver Austin Allen, left, and Shoot Your Ride.com owner Ric Wolford watch as Allen's race car is brought up to studio level on a special lift.

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Mike Berry / Mike Berry

Austin Allen is photographed with his car on a powered turntable at Shoot Your Ride.com. The movable walls allow a photographer to get just the right angle; a huge bank of overhead lights makes sure the illumination for each shot is perfect.

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Mike Berry / Mike Berry

Ric Wolford, owner of Shoot Your Ride.com, sets up a shot with a power head that controls the motorized turntable. Wolford uses an ultra-high resolution digital camera to capture photos of client cars from all angles.

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Mike Berry / Mike Berry

Jeff Cowell uses a laptop computer to capture and sequence the high-resolution images of Austin Allen's Modified race car during a photo shoot this week at Shoot Your Ride.com.

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Mike Berry / Mike Berry

Austin Allen's racing career began before he was school age; here he's seen at about age 5 in his `caged kart' at Wellington's Warden Park Speedway.

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Austin family photo / Courtesy Austin family

Austin's next kart ride was this slick semi-bodied racer.

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Austin family photo / Courtesy Austin family

Seen at speed in this 2005 photo, Austin was competing, and winning money for charity, in this Champ Kart prior to moving up to Hornet class stock cars at 81 Speedway.

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Images by Terry / Courtesy Images by Terry