Daytona win - Motori Seven, Mike Manning - Giessen

Team News: Mike Manning Karting Starts 2013 with Big Win at Daytona

This past weekend, California based team Mike Manning Karting (Team MMK) had the pleasure of visiting the famous Daytona International Speedway for the opening round of the World Karting Association Manufacturer's Cup. Team owner Mike Manning, and team manager Michel Manning, made the trip out east in an effort to reinstate and initiate Team MMK’s presence on the east coast for 2013. Team MMK had the pleasure of working with “Team Beck” of New York, which consisted of drivers Mike Giessen, Chris Beck, and Phil Pignataro. Giessen and Beck competed in the TAG Sr. classes both days on their MMK-powered Motori 7 Tony Kart power plants, and Pignataro competed in TAG Masters with his CRG-Leopard package. Team MMK proudly came home with the victories of main event and pre-final wins for Sunday’s TAG 2 with 13-time WKA Grand National winner Mike Giessen. On Sunday, Giessen started on pole for the main in TAG Sr., with driver Chris Beck starting in the 11th place position. Giessen kept the lead on the start and quite impressively made the rest of the race “look easy”. He pulled away little by little each lap and set his eye on the prize. Giessen drove such a perfect race, that he set fast lap of the weekend with a 40.446 on lap 11! Beck unfortunately had some bad luck in the main, and after unavoidable contact with other drivers he had to call it an early race, ranking 25th out of the 31 TAG 2 entries. Giessen was ecstatic with his win on Sunday, which redeemed any hard feelings from Saturday’s unfortunate Tech disqualification after coming across the finish line in first place with a 2 tenth lead. “We marked Daytona on our schedule two months ago,” expressed Mike Giessen. “Lots of work and preparation went into the program, from the Tony Kart to the new Motori 7 package. We had one goal and that was to win. The Mike Manning prepared powerplant ran flawless all three days and it provided me the power I needed to win. I really need to thank all my supporters as this was a special win for me.” “Team MMK is excited to have had the opportunity to participate at the highest level of TAG competition and get a win with the Mike Giessen/Team Beck Motori 7 Tony Kart program,” stated team owner Mike Manning, after the big win on Sunday. “The Team Beck WKA program with driver Mike Giessen will be expanding to include the IAME class with MMK Leopard power for Round 2.” Team MMK has high goals for the 2013 season, and will be striving to make a mark at as many races as possible to redeem ourselves after the unfortunate theft we had last summer. Team MMK also had the pleasure of working with driver Tom Gerstner at Daytona, who ran MMK Rokk TT engines on his Kosmic power plant in the TAG Masters division. Team MMK would like to give a big thanks to Matt Beck and to all of our supporters.