Heading into the final round of the Stars of Karting championship held inside the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, four drivers were in the thick of championship battles.  Kartel Motorsport’s Brendan Phinny came into the weekend fifty points back of the JICA points lead in second place.  In TaG, Chris Scribner, Chris Wehrheim, and Kyle Wiegand all were still in the hunt.  Wiegand made the switch to Mike Manning engines for the final race.

Friday was busy with practice as the drivers learned the new track and worked with their mechanics to dial in their karts.  Top Kart lead the way all day long in the three categories the team competes in, Cadet, TaG, and JICA.  Chris Wehrheim and Kyle Wiegand led every timed session but one with Wehrheim turning the fastest lap of the day in TaG by over three tenths of a second.  Tyler Thomas and Taylor Miinch led the two final sessions in JICA.  In Cadet, Luis Tyrrell paced the field with Zane Smith and British driver Charlie Robertson close behind.

Saturday could not have been a more perfect day for the team with its drivers going twelve for twelve in first place finishes.  This all started off with Luis Tyrrell taking pole in the first class of the day, Cadet.  Next up was TaG and Chris Scribner rocketed to pole position closely followed by Wiegand in third.  Taylor Miinch showed his speed in practice was no fluke with pole in JICA.  This trend continued in the heat races with multiple drivers winning.  Both Luis Tyrrell and Taylor Miinch swept all three of their heat races giving them pole position for both finals.  Thomas also had strong heat results garnering him a third starting position, his best of the season.  Scribner and Wiegand shared winning in the heats, but Wehrheim was the fastest on track setting fast lap in all three heats and moving up from sixth to start third for both finals giving Top Kart the top three starting positions in TaG for the finals.

The sun came out and the track gripped up for Sunday’s finals where the champions would be crowned.  In Final one Tyrrell ran a great race swapping the lead with the top four drivers lap after lap, but came up just short finishing second by just two one hundredths of a second.  In Final two Jake Craig lead the team to a solid third position, which is also his best result of the season.

Right from the start of the first final in TaG all you could see was blue at the front of the pack with five of the top six karts being Top Karts.  Unfortunately mid-race, Scribner was involved in an incident putting him outside the top ten.  This put Wehrheim in second behind Wiegand who had pulled out a comfortable lead.  With the laps winding down both Wehrheim and Alberico started to real in Wiegand and with five to go the two were on his rear bumper, but just one lap later Wehrheim fell of the pace due to stuck throttle.  This put Alberico at the point to challenge Wiegand for the win.  On the last lap Alberico muscled his way by Wiegand in turn three to take home his first ever Stars of Karting victory.  Following Alberico and Wiegand were McCoy and Wehrheim giving Top Kart the top four positions!  Final two looked much the same with the sea of blue up front.  Wehrheim did not get off to a good start and fell back to tenth in the early laps.  Wiegand and Scribner took turns at the point and gradually pulled out a lead in a group of three.  On the last lap Wiegand lead going into the final corner when the top three made contact.  This hurt his run going onto the front straight and Scribner took advantage to sneak by and take the win.  Alberico had another strong run finishing in fourth with Wehrheim recovering to finish in sixth.  In the final points Scribner finished third followed by Wiegand in fourth, and Wehrheim in fifth.

Though Miinch and Thomas were leading the way in JICA, all eyes were on Phinny who needed to battle back from his poor starting position to win the title.  Straight from the start Miinch broke away from the field with two others in tow.  Falling to third as the laps were winding down, Miinch put in one last effort to take home the win.  Marching to the lead the final two laps was an epic battle only seen with these young racers.  In the end Miinch finished third, another great finish for the rising star.  Phinny was able to move up to fifth, which tied him for the points lead going into the second final.  Once again Miinch broke out to the early lead with teammate Thomas in the lead group.  With the lead shuffling almost every lap Miinch fell back to third, but once again charged back to the lead only to have his engine betray him in the next corner.  All eyes turned the championship battle where Phinny and Menezes went mono e mono in the final laps.  Phinny made an amazing double pass in turn one to take the points lead eventually coming out on top.

Next up for the team is the SKUSA SuperNationals held at the RIO Hotel in Las Vegas where the team looks to continue its success.  Also check out www.grandproducts.com and www.kartelmotorsports.com to learn more about the team and our products.