My youngest son isn’t quite five years old, but that hasn’t stopped him from being accomplished enough at Mario Kart Wii to pretty much beat anyone within a 20-mile radius of our house. He’s the A.J Foyt of virtual racing — assuming, of course, that racing involved giant caterpillars, man-eating plants and mushrooms. LOTS of mushrooms.

For those of you whose last venture into digital-aged racing involved “Night Driver” on your Atari, the Wii is the game system that utilizes little magical thingies inside the “Wiimote” that work in place of standard buttons or joysticks. And by “little magical thingies,” I mean “Jimmy Kite.” In short, err, summary, you hold the Wiimote in front of you, tilt it left or right, and your movements control where your car goes.

My son, God love him, is a total natural at this type of thing, but until now I assumed this skill would be about as useful to him as glockenspiel lessons. But then I came upon this video which clearly demonstrates that my boy has inadvertently been preparing for the next wave of racing technology, which sadly has been adopted by Formula One and not the IndyCar Series.

Lewis Hamilton makes like 6.3 gazillion dollars a year, right? OK, that settles it – forget school, it’s eight hours a day of gaming for the boy, MINIMUM!

(BTW – we also have the “Indianapolis 500 Legends” game. I love it but the boy says it needs more mushrooms.)