Crisscrossing their way across North America and competing in some high profile events, Team PSL Karting branded drivers would recently see action in both Arizona and Florida. While Fritz Leesmann would wheel his CRG machine to a victory at the opening round of the SuperKarts! USA (SKUSA) Pro Tour, the SpringNationals, multiple PSL drivers would battle hard at the second round of the Florida Karting Championship Series (FKCS) event in sunny Southern Florida.
Fritz Leesmann would be one of the main drivers to watch at the Musselman Honda Circuit in Tucson, Arizona, as the 2013 Rotax Challenge of the Americas DD2 Champion would trade his two-speed Rotax powered CRG in for a six-speed gearbox kart in his quest for victory in the S1 division. Using the Friday test day to get up to speed, Leesmann poured it on in the Saturday morning qualifying session to steal the day’s pole position.
With the two heat race results setting up the all-important grid for the main event, Leesmann would claim a second place finish in heat one, and go on to take the victory in heat two. With the progressive results awarding the starting spots for the main event, the multi-time shifter kart champion would line his PSL/CRG up on the inside of row one as he looked to take the victory in the first event of the season.
Able to gain a good start in the main event, Leesmann would fall back to the second position, as four drivers would engage in a battle for the victory. Coming up just short when the checkered flag had flown, Leesman was able to score the fastest lap of the main event en route to a second place podium result.
Back to the track on Sunday for round two of Pro Tour competition, Leesmann would not put a wheel wrong all day long as he swept the day’s festivities. Scoring the pole position in the morning, Leesmann wheeled his CRG to a pair of heat race wins before claiming his first SKUSA main event victory of 2013.
Across the country in Florida, PSL Karting drivers would see action at the Homestead Karting Complex in the shadows of the famed Homestead-Miami Speedway. Competing in round two of the FKCS program, three pilots would look to add to PSL Karting’s and CRG’s 2013 win and podium total.
“Coming down to the FKCS program in Homestead was a real pleasure,” explained PSL Karting’s Team Manager Andrew Campbell. “They have a full plate of classes, with most categories having at least 15 drivers and some very competitive fields.”
From the very first session, Rotax Mini Max pilot Joshua Sirgany was the driver to beat in the category. As one of the quickest drivers on the national karting scene, Sirgany and his PSL Karting/CRG flexed their muscles throughout the FKCS weekend. Taking the Saturday morning pole position, the up-and-coming talent scored the prefinal win and pole position for the main. Looking to make it a perfect day, Sigany quickly jumped into the lead of the Mini Max final and raced his way to the checkers. With the hat trick of results, Sirgany also added fastest lap honors in the process.
Campbell continued, “In Mini-Max, it was fairly obvious our new ‘Hero-Mini’ chassis was the dominating kart in the field. Literally, out of the box, team driver Joshua Sirgany displayed consistent speed immediately and was unbeatable over the weekend. PSL/CRG has been working on this frame since Pan-Am, with the most notable improvement being tire conservation as the Mini-Max class requires a driver to use one set of tires for two race days. This will give a big advantage to a pilot on the second day of competition and the Mojo tires on Sirgany’s CRG looked practically brand new.”
Dominic Tesoro and Ian Cummings would be two PSL Karting pilots that would see action in the Rok Senior category and between them, they would claim four top-six finishes. Both Tesoro and Cummings would show constant improvement on Saturday as they both moved forward from their qualifying efforts. Tesoro would clock the fifth quickest time in qualifying and turn that into a fourth place result in the prefinal. Gunning for a podium in the main event, Tesoro would advance forward another two positions to garner a second place finish. Cummings would see his Saturday start off slow as he would be mired back in the 13th position after qualifying. Placing 12th in the prefinal, Cummings would march his way forward in the main event to cross the stripe in sixth.
Sunday would be a much more consistent day for Tesoro as he started off strong claiming the second quickest time in qualifying and an outside front row starting position for the prefinal. Holding station throughout the heat race, Tesoro would fall back one spot in the main event to take his second podium result of the weekend. Cummings would add another top-five result for PSL as he ended the day with another solid result for Team PSL Karting. Qualifying in the fourth position and claiming a sixth place result in the prefinal, Cummings would move forward in the main event to finish fifth.
“Tesoro drove a pretty impressive race, considering this is only his second time as a PSL Team member,” expressed Campbell. “With minor adjustments, both Cummings and Tesoro were quite fast, again with a stock-out-of-the-box chassis. Considering our engines were randomly drawn from Rok Cup USA, while competing against drivers who owned their engines, we were very consistent with pace and happy with the results.”
Team PSL Karting will continue their 2013 trackside program by competing at the Rotax Pan American Challenge, the United States Rotax Grand Nationals, Eastern Canadian Karting Championship, Coupe de Quebec and the Canadian National Championships. Team PSL Karting is associated with CRG, Maxter Kart Engines, Rotax, Tillett Racing Seats, Sniper, Unipro, Douglas Wheels, Vega, MG Tires, Arai, Bell, ULV, Mir, Freem, Elf Fuels, Alfano, MaxJet Software, D.I.D. Racing Chains, KC and Power Mist.
To learn more about the World’s #1 CRG distributor, sales & service, arrive & drive opportunities, PSL racing engines or dealer opportunities, please visit www.pslkarting.com or www.pslkartingusa.com.
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