The Ruth Family
"We are a family owned business and kart racing is our passion!"
Curtis Ruth
Curtis is the owner/manager of Innovative Karting.
Curtis (kart #40) comes from a racing family that has racing blood deep within their roots. He started racing on a competitive level when he was only 4 years old. He has been an avid racer at PKRA since the early 90's and started racing there at age 12.
Curtis, born in California, started off racing quarter-midgets at the age of 4 and then started racing go karts when he was 12 years old when he moved to Arizona and hasnt stopped since. He has won countless trophies-including 3 prestigious "Duffy's"-, awards, and titles on both the local and national level of karting over the years. Curtis is also listed permanently in the IKF Rulebook as a 'Hall Of Fame Expert'. An elite group of kart racers with only around 100 members on the list in the world.
Curtis has been in the kart racing business for over 20 years now and this is the only job/career that he has ever had since he was a teenager. He truly loves the career path he has chose and his wonderful customers who he gets to work with on a daily basis. One of his favorite sayings is: "Our friends are our customers, and our customers are our friends."
Also, Curtis can really relate to his karting clients because not only is he the owner of a kart shop, but he is there on race days usually racing right along beside you in his #40 kart!
Ask your kart shop if they still race themselves. This can give a deep knowledge of the current karting technology.
Melissa Ruth
Melissa, an Arizona native, is Curtis' wife and has been around kart racing since 1999 when she first met Curtis. She has been working at the kart shop along side her husband since 2005.
She handles all the books and paperwork of the business and also is the creator and webmaster of this-albeit, simple but hopefully informative ;)-website. She enjoys home decoration, photography, taking care of their three wonderful sons and watching them grow, and, of course, going to the kart race track to watch the races! She is also an established doll artist that creates lifelike dolls known as "Reborns" which she creates for her doll enthusiast customers and has sold all over the world. Lastly, she enjoys helping out with the PKRA karting club. She organized/planned/chaired the 2017, 2018, and 2019 awards banquets and helped assist with the 2020 and 2021 awards banquets for the club and has also taken over the role of trophy person for the club as well for over 3 years.
Rich Alten
Rich is our newest right hand man for Innovative Karting. Having been good friends with the Ruth family for several years and racing at PKRA for several years also now, he has proven to be an asset to both our business and the PKRA club. Rich races in both the LO206 Masters and Heavy class at PKRA and seems to win any season or individual race he chooses to run in. He also raced karts at PKRA as a adolescent and just won the 1st place championship in the 2022 LO206 Winter Season 'Heavy' Class. Rich has been PKRA's Champion of Champions (the racer that accumulates the most amount of racing points of the entire club) for the past 3 years and holds the current trophy for that prestigious title.
Rich is Curtis' assistant both at the shop and at the track on practice and race days. He helps assist Curtis at all day to day operations to keep our business up and running smoothly. Rich is also Innovative Karting's official karting trainer. If you need any kart training for practicing or racing your kart, Rich is the man to do it. Who better to learn from than one of the very best and most skilled karting champions of PKRA? Please do not hesitate to contact us if you want to book a training session with Rich Alten. Lastly, in Rich's spare time, he is also an accomplished and successful MMA fighter and fitness personal trainer. Not only can Rich assist you with getting your karting skills to where they need to be, he can also assist you in your diet and personal fitness training to get you physically to where you need to be in your karting venture. He is truly one of a kind, and we are very lucky to have him on our team as both a racer and a business partner!
The boys!
The heart of our team.
Matthew is Curtis and Melissa’s 1st and oldest child who was born March 30th, 2006.
Matthew is an excellent student and very much loves school, gaming, swimming, working on his You Tube channel, and has a passion for computers and technology.
Matthew wants to be a computer engineer, a business owner, or a professional gamer when he grows up! He also has a part time job at Peter Piper Pizza that he very much loves!
After not having a kart or driving a kart since he was 5, Matthew (#39) has recently decided to jump back into the driver’s seat and is the proud owner of a brand new VLR ‘Emerald’!
Matthew’s most recent accomplishment is he is the runner up winner in the LO206 Jr 2 2022 Winter Season championship, taking an overall 2nd place in that class for the season. He won a couple of times that season and podium’d almost every single race of the 2022 Winter Season.
He surely learned and accomplished a lot in the year or so he has been racing. He just finished up his first season of LO206 Senior, moving up to the older class in the Summer of 2022. He took 5th place in the overall championship in the LO206 Sr Class Summer Season 2022 that had 27 unique racers that season. Not bad for his first season as a Senior Rookie!
Kevin is Curtis and Melissa Ruth’s middle child who was born April 9th, 2012.
His hobbies include: riding his bike, swimming, building and collecting LEGOS, playing with his toys and tablet, being a “daddy” to his beloved hamster pet, hanging with his friends, and he loves school!
Kevin (#38) started racing in the Kid Kart Class (ages 5-8) at age 5 at PKRA. He has had many 1st place wins as well as many podium finishes in his short racing career. Kevin won the 1st place champion spot in the 2019 Winter Season, and he also won all 20 races in the Winter & Summer 2020 seasons on his LO206 Briggs kid kart package at PKRA! His most recent accomplishments are placing 3rd at ‘The Cup Karts North America Grand Nationals’ in Newcastle, Indiana in Oct 2020 in the kid kart class, racing against the best kid karters in the entire country! Kevin also won the ‘4 Cycle Supershowdown’ event held at PKRA in Nov. 2020 and is the current reigning Kid Kart champion in that prestigious yearly event.
Kevin has since moved onto the exciting adventure of the next level of kart racing in the LO206 cadet Jr 1 class (ages 8-12) at PKRA which he started driving in in late 2020. He is adapting in the bigger and faster kart very well and has already won several podiums and 1st place finishes in both the LO206 JR 1 Novice and non novice Jr 1 class on PKRA race days!
Kevin’s most recent accomplishment is taking 3rd place in the 2022-2023 PKRA Summer & Winter Season Championship in the LO206 Jr 1 class!
Tristan is our newest little boy to the Ruth Team and he was born April 8th, 2016.
He is the sweetest little boy and a perfect addition to our family!
He loves to play with his toys, ride his Power Wheel, ride his bike, play with his tablet, loves his Hot Wheel collection, going to school, watch all kinds of racing, and visit the kart track to watch his big brothers and daddy drive and race!
Tristan (#37) started practicing and racing in the Kid Kart class at PKRA as of Summer of 2021. He is having a blast learning the sport and driving with his other fellow little racers! He is catching onto the sport great and already has a couple of 1st place wins under his belt!