(Photo: Cody Schindel - CKN)

2025 marks the 27th year of the Florida Winter Tour presented by ROK Cup USA. However, it is the first year the Tour will hold a round outside the state of Florida with Round 3 to be contested at the Speedsportz Racing Park north of Houston, Texas.

“It’s a ‘detour’ for 2025 as we will be at Speedsportz the weekend before the SKUSA Pro Tour opening rounds,” states ROK Cup USA Director Mike Burrell. “We had a great working relationship with SKUSA in 2024 having their Winter Series and FWT back-to-back. Teams that competed in both told us it saved them a great amount of money and effort in transportation costs. We thought it best to stay the course for 2025 and continue that relationship, even if it meant going outside of Florida for a round. We, as promoters, must try to do what is best for the stability of karting in North America.”

While Orlando Kart Center is traditionally the final race, FWT 2025 will contest rounds one and two at the central Florida track. Round one will be the traditional clockwise track and round two will be counterclockwise on the full track length.

Although the schedule looks slightly different, the classes highlight the stability of the ROK program globally. The 60cc ROK Mini engine package will propel our youngest competitors in ROK Micro and ROK Mini.

Last year’s ROK Micro protagonist will both being moving up to ROK Mini. Sodi Kart’s Zayne Burgess won almost everything in Micro last year and was closely stalked by Santiago Orioli who dominated the FWT Orlando round in 2024. Team Benik’s Wynn Godschalk, winner of ROK Vegas, is the favorite in ROK Micro; however, his brother Zev and other yet to be known newcomers to front will challenge Dutch Caribbean driver at every corner.

RPG’s Nico Orbezo dominated ROK Mini in 2024 winning both the Florida Winter Tour and ROK Vegas. However, Orbezo has entered VLR Junior leaving the Mini category up for grabs. Contenders for the ROK Mini championship could not only include the skilled Micro drivers moving up, but also Royce Vega (2nd in last year’s FWT Mini points) and Marco Summut (3rd at ROK Vegas).

ROK VLR Junior and Senior will undoubtably be the largest & likely most competitive classes at Florida Winter Tour. Coming off a win at ROK Vegas and being ultra-consistent in the 2024 FWT, RPG driver Alexander Vanchev is the favorite in VLR Junior. 2024 contenders such as Ty Fisher, Diego Ardiles, and Orsolon Racing’s Sebastian Garzon are all moving to the Senior categories and/or junior formulas such as the F4 US Championship.

Forty-seven different drivers earned points in the 2024 FWT VLR Senior class. Nash Motorsportz Steven Miller made a strong transition from the junior category to take the FWT championship over Alessandro De Tullio and Emma Scarbrough.  While Miller would certainly be a favorite to repeat, a wide variety of names could emerge as contenders in this large class.

2022 World Karting Champion Matheus Morgatto won the ROK Pro Shifter FWT title in 2024 (Photo: Cody Schindel – CKN)

VLR Masters is totally unpredictable. Canadian Ben Cooper won the class at ROK Vegas followed closely by Martin Stone, both out of the RPG tent. Luis Quinones used consistency to win the 2024 FWT VLR Masters Champion with two podiums and a sixth in the round two final.

In 2024, Speed Concepts pilot Diego Ardiles owned ROK GP Junior winning the FWT championship and ROK Vegas. However, Ardiles will move to senior leaving the fight for ROK GP Junior between Sarah Bradley (also of Speed Concepts) and Cole Medeiros. Bradley won the ROK Cup F4 US Championship scholarship winner in 2024 and finished third at ROK Vegas. Medeiros spent most of the fall of 2024 racing in Europe including the ROK Superfinal at South Garda Karting.

In 2024, the UK’s Harley Keeble won the FWT championship in ROK GP Pro for Sodi Kart over Miami’s Jakub Kolar and Californian Blake Nash.  Steven Miller continued his strong 24’ with the class win at ROK Vegas. Assuming both Miller and Nash return to the class, the Nash Motorsportz teammates will be favorites for the FWT 2025 ROK GP Pro title. But don’t count out Kolar or any of the strong Canadian contingent led by ROK Vegas runner-up Olivier Mrak with REM.

DRT Racing’s Jose Montalto took the 2024 ROK Shifter Masters Championship on the strength of complete domination of the AMR Kartplex events. Montalto was closely followed by PSL Birel driver Luis Gautier. However, the ‘spoiler’ for the class might be Scott “Skitchy” Barnes who finished a strong third in points even after not competing in round one.

ROK Pro Shifter was completely dominated by PSL’s Matheus Morgatto. 2021 FWT Champion, Vincenzo Sarracino on Maranello, and DRT’s Colin Daley kept Morgatto honest rounding out the championship podium.

Additionally, rounds 1 & 2 at Orlando Kart Center will include Briggs 206 Senior to showcase the Levanto 4T tire. Last year, 206 Senior was won by Christopher Wakefield. However, Orlando “specialist” like Sam Philippe, will provide a challenge to the Canadian drivers and others who run the four-cycle class at Orlando Kart Center.

FWT will be the only series in the United States where drivers can win tickets to or become eligible for Wild Card tickets for the ROK Superfinal in South Garda, Italy in October of 2025. Other prizes will include tickets to ROK Vegas at the Rio (October 29-November 2), “wild card” tickets good for non-ROK Vegas events, ROK engines, and championship cash purses in the GP and Shifter Pro.

All three rounds of Florida Winter Tour will broadcast free on ROK Cup USA’s YouTube channel. Broadcasts begin each Friday starting with Heat 1 and concluding with Sunday’s Finals. Don’t miss a minute of the action, live or in-person, of the 27th edition of the original Florida Winter Tour.

For more information on the ROK Cup USA FWT, visit: https://rokcupusa.com/florida-winter-tour/.

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