Kent Laukaitis - Back in the Driver's Seat By Joe Brittin With almost 20 years of kart racing experience, former WKA enduro road racing champion Kent Laukaitis is back in the driver's seat competing in the WKA George Kugler Manufacturer's Cup sprint kart series in the Yamaha Heavy and Yamaha Masters classes. After the first two rounds of the series in 2003, Kent has already picked up two wins in the Yamaha Masters class at Daytona and Lowes Motor Speedway. His competition at Daytona included former IRL driver and many time karting champion Mark Dismore, who finished 3rd. At Lowes, Kent pulled away to a seven second win over second place in the final to easily capture his second win of the season. He is looking forward to continuing his winning ways over the 2003 season as he competes in the WKA Manufacturer's Cup Series. Although the change from enduro karts to sprint karts may seem like a backward progression, Kent has really spent more seat time in sprints karts than enduros over the past 20 years. He started racing sprint karts in 1984 at Mid-State Raceway near Springfield, IL with help from his father Gene, who was a former motorcycle racer. Their passion for the sport quickly evolved to where they were rebuilding their own Yamaha motors and the family garage soon became a full service engine building shop. Their focus in racing shifted from the local level to street racing and sit-up sprint road racing. From there, they progressed to enduro national road racing classes and Kent ultimately captured several WKA national point championships in the late 1980's and early 1990's. The untimely loss of his father to a heart attack in 1993 thrust Kent into managing their growing engine building service full time and he soon opened a full service kart shop on the outskirts of Decatur, IL. His full time involvement in the Laukaitis Racing Engines shop and commitments to raising two young sons limited his on-track participation, although he made occasional appearances in a variety of sprint and enduro events, allowing him to keep current with his Yamaha rebuilding technology. Kart racing has always been a family affair for the Laukaitis family and now both of his sons are participating at Mid-State Raceway where Kent got his start. Matthew competes in the Yamaha Junior 1 class while younger brother Jordan competes in the Kid Kart class. Kent's wife and mother can often be found helping the guys out in the pits or helping out with the track concession stand. Kent has found returning to his roots at Mid-State Raceway to help his sons race or to help his customers with their Corsa kart set-ups to be very gratifying and is having more fun than ever racing karts. The Laukaitis Yamaha has long been a respected motor in the 2-Cycle racing community with many topnotch drivers utilizing his power plants. Keith Freber, President of Margay Karts, counts on Laukaitis power for his annual enduro racing at Daytona and picked up a win this year in the Yamaha Sportsman Heavy class along with a second place in Yamaha Sportsman Medium. Jay McQuinn was a WKA Grand National winner in the Yamaha Heavy class at Putnam Park last year using Laukaitis power. Many time Quincy South Park winner Scott Evans also used Laukaitis engines for several of his park wins. Kentıs desire to contest the WKA Manufacturers Cup series in 2003 is to help develop his Yamaha engine blue-printing services and to gain the knowledge needed to help his customers with the set-up of their Corsa chassis sprint karts. Laukaitis Racing was appointed the U.S. national importer for the Corsa Kart in 2002. The Corsa Kart has proved to be fast at both the local and national level for his customers. With the new 2003 Corsa Falco model, Kent has had even better results at the national level along with Team Corsa drivers David Cox and Ross Johnson. The Corsa chassis is available in 30 mm or 32 mm tubing for applications in all sprint classes. Shifter kart driver Brian Robson captured a WKA Grand National win at Putnam Park in August of 2002 while piloting a Laukaitis prepared Corsa 125 shifter chassis. Corsa also makes a Kid Kart model called the Minox for the Comer 50cc class. For more information on the Corsa Kart, see www.corsaracing.com. For more information about the Laukaitis Racing shop, see www.clearlight.com/~laukrace/2000/.