CHARLOTTE, N.C. — As late winter approaches 206 racers will have plenty of options for racing throughout the Southeast region over the next month.
Most teams have taken the last few weeks off since the World Karting Association hosted Daytona KartWeek in the final days of 2022 and Cup Karts North America opened its 2023 season at 103rd Street Sports Complex Jan. 6-8.
Action is about ready to heat up after the January breather with Cup Karts South’s rounds 2 and 3 set for this weekend, Feb. 3-5 at a new venue for many — Finishline Performance Karting on the Gulf of Mexico coast in Biloxi, Miss.
Pre-entries are looking solid for this new event and much improved from CKNA’s first trip to the Gulf region last May at NOLA Motorsports Park in Louisiana. Nearly every class shows double-digit pre-entry counts for the event, which will utilize a technical version of Finishline known as the “ROK layout.”
A week later North Florida Kart Club will return to action on Saturday, Feb. 11 with its second local race of the season at 103rd Street in Jacksonville, Fla. NFKC opened its 2023 series on Jan. 21 although a good portion of the day was hampered by rain.
The Feb. 11 race will serve as a WKA warmup event with the first Vega Tire / Gold Cup Series South Region race slated for the following weekend, Feb. 17-19.
Both races will utilize the traditional 103rd Street counterclockwise Full Track course, marking the first time a touring series has run the counterclockwise layout since the Maxxis Grand Nationals in November 2021. Click here for updates on the 2023 Gold Cup Series class structure and weekend schedule, which will have all qualifying races on Saturday and both rounds of finals on Sunday.
A week after the Gold Cup opener GoPro Motorplex in Mooresville, N.C., kicks off the 2023 version of the popular Karting Challenge on Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 25-26. GoPro returns to its regular 11-turn full course layout for the two-day opener which will serve as rounds 1 and 2 of the competitive club series. Each of the first four weekends of the Karting Challenge (Feb., March, April and May) will serve as doubleheaders with the first single-day show not until round 9 on July 1.
March will open with one of the biggest sprint races of the year in the United States with CKNA’s return to Charlotte Motor Speedway for the third annual Spring Nationals at the 0.6-mile CMS kart track. Over 300 race entries competed at the Spring Nationals each of the first two years of the event and a bigger crowd is expected this year with no conflicts with any major sprint series (last year USPKS ran on the same weekend in Orlando).
This year’s SpringNats will serve as second CKNA major of the season after the Winter Nationals and the event is also the points series opener for the new CKNA North East Division which will continue at Oakland Valley Raceway Park in New York this April 14-16.
About 250 miles south of Charlotte the Vega Tire WKA National Road Race Series will run on the same weekend as the Spring Nationals with the Southern Kart Club-hosted Nationals at Roebling Road Raceway near Savannah, Ga. While a different discipline of karting versus sprint, Roebling Road karting events routinely attract 40 to 50 CIK LO206 racers and we’d expect a similar crowd this March 3-5.
For information on all these events, head to the following websites:
CKNA — cupkarts.com/
NFKC — northflkarting.com/
WKA Gold Cup — worldkarting.com/series/gold-cup/
GoPro Motorplex — gopromotorplex.com/race-events/
WKA Road Racing — worldkarting.com/series/road-racing/