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The Burris Circle Tour, the Midwest’s premier speedway kart racing series opened its 8t season under cold, cloudy skies on Sunday.  Burris Racing and R.A. Adams return as the major sponsor for the series that draws racers from a 4 state area.  The Burris Circle Tour is a 13 event series that runs at speedway tracks in the Chicagoland area.

The program started with the Kid Karts driving the banked 1/3 mile oval. These 5-7 year olds put on a great show as they learn the basics of driving. Sunday’s participants were Joey Mandarino, Maggie Stumpf, Jordan Jagielski, Jacob Bandaly, Eric Hannemann, Jacob Zellmer, Jake Thorne and Casey Martin.

The Champ Kart classes continue to grow as the karts with a roll cage and 5 point harness gain in popularity.  3 classes are featured in the 2002 Burris Circle Tour.  Mackenzie Piller, moving up from the Kid Kart class, took home her first place trophy in the Jr. Sportsman Champ class.  Gina Mooi, the 2000 Class Champion, barely beat out Mickey Kudlicki in the Jr. Champ feature event.  Mickey set the stage by winning the two heat races.  Mike Slabenak, Jr. almost celebrated too early, narrowly beating out Nicole Phillips for the feature win in the Star Champ class.

The Sr. Lite class is as competitive as ever with returning champion Joe Moser taking on the kids again this year.  Moser won both of his heat races and led all but one lap of the feature.  Unfortunately, the last lap is the only one that counts and Jacob Humphrey made a pass in the last corner to power by Moser at the finish line.  Tour newcomer Jason Lindgren followed Humphrey to the front, leaving Moser to settle for third.  Also making a great showing were Shane Morrissey and Richard McGill who filled out the top five.

Brandon Eash won the Sr. Medium and Sr. Heavy Classes and Stan Guess was the winner in the 4 Cycle Sportsman Class.  Newcomers Joe Chiapetta, Valerie Hage-Wrobel and Mike Terrafino joined other familiar names in the 4 Cycle Sportsman line up.  Chiapetta and JJ Adams joined Guess atop the podium.

The F200-OHV Class is the only class the runs for prize money at the Circle Tour.  In today’s event Rodney Manthey and Dan Bakke took home the purse for first and second place respectively.

In action in the Junior classes, Tyler Peterson won the feature in the Jr. 1 class, Billy Hulbert dominated the large field of Jr. 3 drivers and Carly Mandarino won the Jr. Yamaha class.

The Burris Circle Tour holds its second event of the season May 12th at Lake Geneva Raceway, then moves to the Rockford Speedway on May 26th.  Spectators are always welcome free in the grandstands or for a nominal fee in the pits. Kids of all ages are welcome to come out and enjoy a day at the races.