THE Cebuano karting community has something to be proud of after it was chosen as the pilot students for Petron Corporation’s first ever Petron Motorsports Karting Academy.
And, it is not all about learning as the karting clinic which was held at Kartzone in Barangay Kasambagan, Cebu City, yesterday will culminate in a race today wherein the top finishers will get to compete in a national finals in January next year.
A total of 39 karters ages 6 to 19 years old showed up yesterday to learn the fundamentals of karting through lecture and application under instructor Edgen Dy-Liacco, a renowned multi-motorsport coach.
And, they will be evaluated in today’s race proper which will have two categories — a 6-12 years old and a 13 and above.
“We want to start early in our program and what makes it very surprising is that we were overwhelmed by the huge participation and the excitement the Cebuanos brought in this program,” said Ana Francheska Garcia, Petron Corporation’s Marketing Associate.
Garcia added that “we were initially expecting 15 participants only but we were able to gather 39 total participants who make our decision in making Cebu as the first venue for our program the perfect choice.”
According to Garcia, they chose Cebu as the pilot venue of their ambitious motorsports program because of its prominence in motorsports.
She added that Cebu is a hotbed when it comes to motorsports as several names that already won national titles in any motorsports given came from the Queen City of the South.
“This is the first in the Philippines. We have chosen Cebu because number one, there is a lot of potential here, second, it is the home of very popular karting names in William John Riley Tiu Go, and of course Matteo Guidicelli who is also our ambassador, and third it is because there is a facility here and there is a huge interest in terms of motorsports in Cebu so it was an instant decision for us to stage the first leg here,” said Garcia.
Also, part of the long-term goal of Petron’s program is to revive the motorsports industry in the Philippines.
The Petron Motorsports Karting Academy is a thrust of Petron Corporation to develop the grassroots level in many types of motorsports in the Philippines.
And, it just happened that karting became the first type of motorsport that they are developing.
“The Petron Motorsports Karting Academy is an introduction to our long-term goal of developing our future motorsports heroes, and karting is one of the disciplines that we chose first,” explained Garcia.
“We are also planning to look for more kinds of motorsports whether it is four-wheel or two-wheel. This is our first step for a bigger plan in the future, we want to start at the grassroots level because we already sponsored Formula 4 before,” added Garcia.
The Petron Motorsports Karting Academy will also be holding clinics and competitions in two other areas in Visayas and Mindanao.
Up next will be Bacolod on Oct. 6 to be followed by a leg in Davao on Nov. 17.
The top two finishers from Cebu will join the top two finishers from Bacolod and Davao in the national championships.
The national finals will be held in January at the Carmona Racing Circuit in Carmona, Cavite.
There, the top karters from Visayas and Mindanao will compete against karters from Metro Manila.
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