“Once we got home, their response was jokingly, ‘OK, go to your room.’”Today, the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science student is on the fast track to achieving his aspirations after winning a $50,000 scholarship from Mazda Motorsports. Meskelis used his lawn-mowing money to buy a used go-kart and began racing several days a week. “I was able to pick it up very quickly and get better by just training, training, training,” Meskelis said. In 2024, Meskelis moved from racing go-karts to cars, and in November, he won the Mazda Motorsports scholarship at the 2024 Spec MX-5 Shootout. These days, as Meskelis works toward his professional goals, his parents, Simone and Wladimir Meskelis, are cheering him on.