WSK: Raquel Martinez Portimao summary

RAQUEL MARTINEZ WSK WORLD SERIES PORTUGAL REPORT

"Martinez Makes European Debut"

Whittier, CA (July 14, 2010) - Less than two weeks ago California native Raquel Martinez made the trip across the pond to compete in her first European karting event. She chose the world's largest stage for this occasion in that being the WSK World Series, which is a three race series, held on three continents. Round one was held at the brand new Circuito do Algarve in Portugal where she joined the Factory Top Kart team.

Raquel and the team arrived at the track Wednesday morning to prep for the opening day of practice. The first two sessions of the day were spent breaking in the IAME engines while learning the track. After lunch Raquel started to pickup the pace as the team began to work on the setup. By the end of day one Raquel had learned a lot and was taking her time learning how to drive the Dunlop tires and on a very grippy track. Qualifying was set for Thursday evening and Raquel qualified in 30th position for the heat races. In heat one Raquel was up to 18th position when on the last lap an on track incident forced her to finish in 30th. Heat number two started off the same way with Raquel getting off to a great start and moving up 20th until another incident occurred, which put her back to 27th position. Each heat race she continued to improve and the team was looking forward to the last heat race, but a popped chain forced her retirement.

On Sunday the thirty four kart field lined up for the prefinal where Raquel moved up early in the race. Around half way the driver behind Raquel lost his brakes and hit her off the track. Raquel was able to continue, but fell in 27th position. The final was a tough race, but Raquel was up for the challenge and put on her best performance of the weekend when it counted. Raquel moved up to 20th position with about five laps to go and caught a group in front of her looking to improve a few more positions. Unfortunately an incident ended the race under caution giving Raquel a top 20 in her debut race.

"I feel like I have learned more in just this one week than I have all year," stated Martinez. "Every lap I learned something new and I can not wait until my next race in Europe. I am also very happy with the result as we achieved every goal we had set including a top twenty finish in my first International race."

This coming weekend "Rocky" will be heading back to Europe to compete in the very competitive Italian Open Masters series, which races across Italy. Raquel will once again be competing in the KF3 category. The team plans four to five more trips to Europe this year to prepare for the 2011 season.

-source: raquelmartinez.com