Three Maltese young karters finished in the top three places in an event at the Santa Venera track in Sicily.

Two others were not so lucky, with Johan Spiteri retiring after an engine failure, and Ronald Carbonaro finished 14th overall after experiencing tyre pressure problems.

The track is 1.2 km long with ten corners and one chicane. Trevor Muscat finished in top spot followed by Jacob Borg and Paul Muscat

The adventure for the four Maltese karters, fathers and helpers started on Thursday the 21st July at 5:30pm at Pista Santa Venera in Acireale. This first day was used mainly to get used to the track and to find a basic set-up for the kart. Our times were a few seconds of the pace and much work still had to be done. Testing finished at midnight.

The next day was much easier, as every one had an idea of what to expect.

The karts drive-100cc air-cooled, capable of reaching speeds of 80Mph, and the Maltese were reaching speeds of 74Mph in the straight.

All drivers were using the same chassis and engine, although the model no. of the chassis varied, this was purely coincidental as there are no rules on the make of chassis/engine that had to be used

There were 15 drivers in the race; two different classes were mixed together, Air-Cooled and Water-Cooled engines, water-cooled engines being more efficient then air-cooled.

Despite this fact, the Maltese managed to outpace many of the water-cooled engines and beat all the Italians in the air-cooled class.

In qualifying all the Maltese struggled, Trevor Muscat finished 8th,Paul Muscat 9th and Jacob Borg 13th. Every one managed to make a good start and gain positions, with various battles amongst the Maltese and Italians.

Trevor had a clean race, slowly making his way up the field into 3rd place overall and 1st in class. He had one moment of drama, when the driver in 4th place tried a rash overtaking move which sent both of them into the grass.

Jacob had a harder task due to his adverse grid position, but still managed to carve his way up the field and despite 1 excursion and contact with another kart, still managed to finish 5th overall and 2nd in class.

Paul had a very eventful race, after making up a few a lot of positions in the first few laps, a small mistake sent him running wide and into the grass, he lost various positions but still managed to make his way up to 7th overall and 3rd in class.

It was the 1st 2-stroke race in a year for all the drivers due to the fact that the track in Malta is not adequate for these high speed machines. A new track is in the pipeline and should be ready for the 2006 seasons.

It was a great experience for the drivers, who hope to go up again next September, if sponsors can be found.