Six days after returning from Portugal, Raquel Martinez and the team got back on a plane to fly to Italy for the penultimate round of the Italian Open Masters series.  The race was held at the newly built Viterbo circuit about an hour and a half outside of Rome.

60 karts were entered in the KF3 category and throughout practice Raquel and her Top Kart were consistently in the top twenty time wise.  Qualifying was Friday evening and Raquel posted the 30^th fastest lap.  This was a little disappointing considering her pace in practice, but Raquel knew she could make up spots in the three heats races on Saturday.  Heat one did not start as planned with an incident on lap one, but heat two was a little different.  On lap one Raquel moved up from her 15^th starting position to 9^th position and worked her way up to 3^rd place with about five laps to go and finished in the same position.  Heat three started with Raquel being hit at the start and falling to last position.  Needing a solid result to make the final, Raquel pushed hard and was able to make it up to 15^th by the end of the race.

With a 45 point total from the heat races Raquel would start 31^st for the prefinal.  Raquel got off to a great start in the prefinal until on lap two when she was collected by an incident blocking the track.  The final started the same way with an incident blocking the track, but this time Rocky was able to make it through and moved up eleven spots to finish 21^st.

“This was not the result I was hoping for, but I am still very happy with the result and all the work the team has done,” commented Martinez.  “Each race I continue to learn something new and I am looking forward to returning to the states to compete in the next round of the WSK North American championship.  I am looking forward to building a gap in the KF3 points standings and getting back into the thick of the TaG Jr. Championship.”

This weekend Raquel will be racing in the WSK North America series at New Jersey Motorsports Park followed by the second round of the WSK World Series at the same track.  For more information please visit www.raquelmartinez.com.  Raquel would also like to thank her sponsors King Taco, Pepsi, P1 Engines, Grand Products, Top Kart, RLV, Bridgestone, DWT, Alpinestars, MLP Imaging, Troy Lee Designs, Bell Helmets, Graphix Plus and PKS Kart Supplies.