Justin is 4 years old.

This Saratoga youngster is a sight to see whenever he takes to the floor at Homestead Lanes in Cupertino. Barely 3 feet tall, Justin sports his own special bowling shirt, embroidered with his name, and he expertly rolls his own personal 8-pound, race car-decorated bowling ball down the alleys, scoring strikes and spares like nobody's business. And no, he doesn't use bumper lanes.

Justin's mother, Barbara Beach, says Justin became enamored of the sport because his father loves it so much.

"His father's a big bowler, so Dad's always talking about his bowling league when he comes home, and Dad's always watching bowling on TV," says Beach. "When he was 2 and [we brought him to the bowling alley], we couldn't keep him off the lanes, so we finally just gave him a ball."

Justin says his father taught him how to play, but, most of all, he picked up the strategy and skill of the sport by being an incredibly motivated and observant child. Soon, it was nothing but bowling for this little preschooler.

"Every toy at home turned into a bowling ball, used to knock things down. We have every bowling toy known to man. We have carpets that look like bowling lanes, we have balls, we have all kinds of pins," she says. "He's always watching TV, copying everything, and then coming down to the bowling alley and explaining to everyone how to knock all the pins down. He just works really hard at being very observant."

Beach says Justin loves to have his 2-year-old brother, Brandon, set up the pins for him at home, so he can knock them down.

Justin can also name most of the professional bowlers in the industry, since they're his heroes. He loves to cheer for them along with the TV, and emulate them when he bowls.

"I get him up in the morning and sit him in front of the TV and he turns on bowling. By the time I come back, he's jumping up and down on the couch and yelling, 'nice ball!' " she says. Where most kids want to watch cartoons, she jokes, her son likes to watch bowling.

Beach says Justin was asking to come to the bowling alley so often--around four times a week--that they finally just enrolled him in the Rascals bowling league on Saturdays at Homestead Lanes, for kids up to 18 years old. Justin is the youngest bowler in the league; Beach estimates the next youngest is around 7 or 8.

Just last month, Justin competed in his first tournament, the State Junior Adult Tournament in Fremont. For his three games, he bowled a 112, a 98 and an 87, which will be added up for his total score. The tournament, which lasts six weeks, is still going on, so results will arrive soon.

Although Justin is still too young to say whether a professional bowling career is his dream, Beach says she is proud of his dedication and passion.

"Just the fact that he has such motivation for anything at such a young age leaves promise for anything he might do," she says. "We're more impressed at the motivation and the drive. Every morning when he wakes up, he says, 'is today a bowling day?' " she says. "It's almost difficult to keep him away. And he often gathers a crowd around him. It's just really fun for us to watch. But as a parent you just have to keep it all in perspective."

Wherever his bowling talent leads him, Justin certainly has a lot of people who believe in him.

"This kid's more talented than half the teenagers I've got," says Ron Crumb, coach of the Homestead Lanes Rascals League, in which Justin plays faithfully each weekend. "He's going to be a star."