Connor De Phillippi – Charity Karting in England

Birmingham, England (January 15, 2010) – Hmm. Snow in Paris, France? It was the very last thing I would have expected when I landed in Paris to catch my connecting flight onto Birmingham, England. It had been nearly a full day’s worth of traveling, and I still had another day fully ahead of me since I landed in England in the afternoon. This whole week was going to be action packed and eventful, especially when it came time for this charity karting event!

The first day of the Autosport show at the NEC. I never could have imagined that the show would be as big and overwhelming,as it was. For the first few days before the karting charity event, I was there working with the Skip Barber Race Series to help promote their competitive North American open-wheel series. The goal was to help encourage European racers to try moving their motorsport career over to the U.S.. Since our booth had an iRacing simulator, it created big crowds and gave us many opportunities to speak with young and aspiring racing drivers looking to further their careers. Although it was slow at first, the day went by rather quick and it was onto the next day. Time for the Charity Karting Event!!

So each morning the goal was to be downstairs and ready by 8:00 AM. (Fellow Skip Barber racer) Stevan (McAleer) and I both were very tired from the jet lag and a full day of work, so we knew getting up around 7:00 AM would be rather difficult. We both thought to be safe, we each should set two alarms each and surely we would make it downstairs in time. Sure enough that didn’t work out and we received a nice, warm phone call at 8:00 AM from (Skip Barber’s) Todd (Snyder). We jumped out of bed and began to rush to get ready as quick as possible, but in the time being we just were laughing as we were getting dressed because we could not believe we slept through all four of those alarms!!

Down to the lobby we went and it was about 8:15, which was pretty quick considering our room was about 8ft by 8ft. So to the NEC we went, and I was so pumped for the karting event. My Team USA lads (Josef Newgarden, Conor Daly and Patrick Barrett) would be at the show a little early so we could discuss early strategy. All of the guys arrived and we began to make our way over towards the locker area so we could get suited up and ready for the event. To see all of the big names there was simply mind blowing and it felt amazing to have my name next to those like Allan McNish and David Brabham. The race started in mass chaos and as you can predict, it continued and ended in mass chaos.

The results were definitely not what we expect, but overall the money that we helped generate for this great charity event, benefitting Malaria No More, was the primary goal and that goal was reached with great numbers. It was another fantastic experience, thank you to the Team USA Scholarship and I cannot thank all our the Scholarship supporters enough for this fantastic opportunity.