Junior karters take off for Florida Winter Tour

Glenroy Sinclair, Assignment Coordinator

Five of Jamaica's top go-karters will leave the island this afternoon for the 12th annual Florida Winter Tour (FWT) Formula Kart Cham-pionship Series, which will be held at the revamped Palm Beach International Raceway in Miami.

The Jamaican contingent include schoolboys Justin Sirgany of St. Andrew Prep, Joshua Sirgany of Hillel Prep, Adam Minott of Sts Peter and Paul, Campion College's Thomas Issa and Matthew Williams of Hillel Academy.

Justin and Joshua Sirgany, along with Minott, will compete in the Micro Max Class, Issa will take part in the Rotax Mini-Max and Williams in the Rotax Junior Class.

"Matthew is really ready for this, he is focused," boasted Neil Williams, Matthew's father.

Joshua's father, Ricky, has expressed maximum confidence in his son's ability.

Optimistic

"Joshua competed at the first leg last month and he finished fifth and sixth out of 32 starters. These are karters from across the world," the elder Sirgany said.

Peter Rae, president of the Jamaica Karting Association and the boys' driving coach, said: "We are very optimistic, having completed a successful meet here on Sunday, plus, the guys have had experience at the Palm Beach International Raceway before and so we are expecting great things from them."

On Sunday, with the exception of Minott who is still in the learning process, the youngsters demonstrated that they are ready for the challenge overseas.

Williams and Joshua, especially, were very impressive.

This is the second leg of the championship. The first leg was held on the weekend of January 15 at the Orlando Karting Centre, Florida. The third leg will be held on the weekend of March 19 in Orlando.

In the meantime, another team of Jamaican karters is now preparing to leave the island next week for the Homestead Championship Series in Miami.