Bermuda Karting Club have been busy tearing up the track Stateside at meetings in Washington and Illinois.

Flying the island’s flag with pride, Team ITALKART Bermuda took a contingent of 17 to Sumas last month, including seven drivers racing across five classes, for the SIMA Summer Series at SIMA raceway.

Blake Horseman, in the TAG Senior “Newbie” class (age 16+), and Jason “Skuzzie” North, in the TAG Masters class (age 35+), were both crowned champions after blistering efforts.

Horseman came second in qualifying, first in the pre-final race and top of the podium in the main event.

North had a more unpredictable route to first place, finishing third in qualifying, tenth in the pre-race final before turning on the afterburners to take the chequered flag in the main event.

The club’s other podium triumph was secured by young Ashley Horseman in the TAG Junior 1 class (age 8-11). The model of consistency, Ashley backed up her third position in qualifying and pre-final race with the same result in the main race.

Elsewhere in the juniors, Ryan Burgess competed in the TAG Junior 2 class (age 10-12). He qualified in pole but had to settle for fourth in the main event.

For the adults, four drivers competed in the TAG Senior class (age 16+) with mixed results. All BKC competitors gave it their all, with North improving on his qualifying result of fifth to finish fourth in the main event. Stephen Corrado could not quite break into the top ten, finishing eleventh, while Corey Lewis notched a pre-final race result of seventh but slipped to fifteenth.

Ryan Rebello performed well in qualifying before crossing the finish line of the main event in sixteenth.

“I was rather impressed with the overall performance of the team on a whole,” North said. “The two youngest, Ryan Burgess and Ashley Horseman stood out for me as neither of them had ever raced away from the island before.

“So to see them both keep their composure, learn the track, and lay down some impressive laps during their practice, qualifying, and races was awesome to see.

“The rest of the drivers on the team have raced at least once off-island, but once again it was great to see everyone get comfortable with their karts and start laying down some decent speeds on a track layout that none of us have ever raced on before.

“Obviously, with us being from Bermuda we had that added pressure as well, as we were the talk of the track since travelling so far to race there.

“We had to also keep in mind that not only was this a track layout that none of us have been on before, but we were also all in karts that we had never driven before, as they were loaned to us for the weekend from our ITALKART supplier, Italian Motors USA, which we’re extremely grateful for.”

North backed up his performance in Washington by competing for Team ITALKART Bermuda at the Rock Island Grand Prix street race in Illinois last weekend. It was a return to the track where North enjoyed his first win overseas 16 years ago.

His focus was the Masters class and things looked good when he was racing in second place after two laps but he got knocked out of contention and had to settle for seventh place despite victory in the heat.

In the TAG Senior class, North again performed well in the heat, coming second, before again having to settle for seventh in the main event.