K&K West Enjoys First Trip South to COA Phoenix

The gang at K&K West packed up their trailer and headed south just over a week ago, cruising south to the Phoenix Kart Racing Association to take part in the opening round of the Challenge of the Americas. Led by Jimmy Gregory, known as Uncle Jimmy, the squad arrived in Phoenix with a number of K&K Karts, all needing preparation for competition in the Briggs & Stratton 206 categories as well as Rok Shifter.

It was the maiden voyage to the USA for K&K West and after a fun weekend of COA racing, Gregory and co were thrilled with the event and the atmosphere.

“For our first venture to the USA, our goal was to get into the top-ten with our K&K Cobra Briggs and our K&K Viper Rok Shifter. My mission is to create product awareness of our karts in order to get a dealer network in the American market. We had much support from Kevin Dowler, Patrick Kelly aka Rok tech, Ryan Ruth, and all the Phoenix crew. Everyone from the racers to Challenge management crew treated us like kings.”

The team lined up five Canadian racers as well as setting up a ride for a local Phoenix racer. Ryan Martin, Rob Kozakowski, and Justin Goerz pulled double duty, racing in both Briggs and Shifter while John Buzza, AJ Hernandez and Uncle Jimmy himself raced in the Briggs categories.

“We had great results for our maiden trip, learned a lot about our karts and will continue to do more research for our 2020 K&K chassis design. The Phoenix track is my favourite at this time. We all had a blast and would highly encourage fellow Canadian racers to get out and race round two and three. We all met some very good new people that offered much support.”

“The racers Rob, Ryan, John, Justin, myself and AJ from Phoenix had a great time racing. We worked for long hours, raced hard and learned lots. I really want to do rounds two and three if we can make it work.”

Gregory was very pleased with his experience, giving credit to Andy Seesemann and his COA crew. Using this weekend as a chance to promote karting back home, Gregory shared information about the EDKRA Summer Challenge as well as the return of the Western Canadian Karting Championship to his new friends in the USA with hopes of luring some to the races in Canada this summer.

And there was also some podium success for the team as Rob Kozakowski stood on the third step of the podium in Rok Shifter Masters on both race days.

“Hats off to Andy Seesemann, Uncle Bernie, Cousin Jim, Big Guy and Garett Potter. The dudes put on a very well organized race and their hospitality and support were second to none.”

“I did a lot of promotion to get American teams and racers to race at EDKRA Summer Challenge July 20-22. We have confirmed a few of which I will release in next month. Great time for all our K&K crew and much congrats to Rob for his Master’s podiums in shifters.”

Hopefully K&K West can return to the COA when round two hits the track at CalSpeed Karting on February 23-25.

Ryan Martin leading Justin Goerz and Rob Kozakowski (Photo by: Cody Schindel / CKN)