While Marco Andretti is well known locally and worldwide as an open wheel driver, two other Nazareth natives are making an impact in the sport, and both of these individuals are competing at Sebring this weekend in races leading up to the famous 12 Hours of Sebring (visit the official 12 hours of Sebring Site here).
In December, Sage Karam, 13, became the youngest driver to earn the top award at the Mazda Shoot-Out, which pits the best young kart racers against one another over three days and provides a $50,000 scholarship to race the upcoming season in the 2009 BFGoodrich/Skip Barber National Presented by Mazda as part of the MAZDASPEED Motorsports Development team (read more about this year's Shoot-Out here). This is the same series Marco Andretti drove in prior to joining the IRL. Karam earned one of two full rides out of a field of over 50 drivers competing that weekend.
Corey Lewis, 17, (read previous post here) has received sponsorship to compete at Sebring, but is still looking for support to continue in the National Series.
Despite the fact that these two drivers are in their teens, the series is open to all ages.
This morning, the National Series Qualifying was held and Lewis and Karam both got six laps in with Lewis qualifying 18th and Karam 19th out of 23 drivers. Lewis was able to shave a second off his time from final practice to qualifying, while Karam was about the same at 0.1 lower in qualifying.
Good luck to both in the race!
3 comments:
Congratulations to both young men!
There are two races at each location and the results for the first for this series at Sebring was just posted:
Race 1 was 10 laps around the 3.7 mile Sebring Road Course and Karam finished 14th out of 23, one position ahead of Lewis.
Karam improved five positions from his start, and Lewis improved three.
Karam's five position improvement from start to finish was tied for the most with one other driver. The 2nd place finisher improved four positions.
2nd Race results are now in - big congratulations to Lewis who finished 8th, according to times right up to the 7th place finisher (.05 seconds behind).
Karam finished 13th, one spot better than the earlier race.
Not sure if their starting positions were the same, but regardless, both appeared to have had a good first race weekend effort on the national series.
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