(Photo: KSP Reportages)

The EKN Driver Diary returns with a focus surrounding the FIA Karting Academy Trophy program. The international championship is into its 17th season and offering the Senior category for a second year. The United States of America did not have a representative in the category for 2025, with Louisiana driver Derek Wargo becoming the first to represent the Red, White and Blue. A total of 49 drivers from across the globe compete in the ‘arrive and drive’ program aboard the Exprit / Vortex / Maxxis packages.

Wargo is providing EKN with a look into his travel and experience competing at the FIA Karting Academy Trophy Senior program. The first event was held on May 7-10 at the Kartodromo Internacional Lucas Guerrero outside Valencia, Spain (Click HERE for entry). The second stop came on June 11-14 at the Motorsportarena Mulsen in Germany. Below is a day-by-day look into Round Two of the championship chase.

Tuesday, June 9, 2026:

On Tuesday the travels began. We were home for Monday before, and that was it. This was because of racing at the RMC America’s Trophy finale at Motorsports Country Club of Cincinnati the weekend before. We got to the airport and headed on our adventures.

Wednesday, June 10, 2026:
Wednesday was the day of arrival in Germany. We landed in Leipzig, Germany, and had an hour and a half car ride to Chemnitz. We arrived at a decent hour and decided to eat lunch in Chemnitz, as we were very hungry. We stopped in at a local German restaurant and ate some pork and such. I didn’t really eat much, so then we went to the apartment that we rented. I fell asleep on the couch and never woke up.

Thursday, June 11, 2026:
Set-up day. We had to get all of our materials and build our kart. My mechanic Doug Foxworth and I finished the tasks relatively fast, and we were waiting for the end-of-day session. We only had one session at the end of the day. It ended up being dry, and I finished the session 5th in my group and overall.

I didn’t really think the track was going to be as small as it ended up being. From watching Champions of the Future event, the track looked relatively big, similar to New Castle. There were straights that were big, but the corners were small, as you would see at a track like MCC. The facility itself was pretty cool with two different restaurants and a very big indoor pool, rental kart track. The most unique thing about the track/facility was that it looked to be cut out of a big hill.

Friday, June 12, 2026:

Action kicked off with practice and qualifying to end the second day on track. It ended up being wet all day and never quite dried up. I had decent pace in the wet but was missing a little bit to be up in the front. I was around the higher mid-pack in all of the practices. Then qualifying came around, and I was 12th in my group. My group had a wet track for qualifying, where the other group was pretty much dry, allowing them to go a lot faster. They combined the groups to put me 24th overall to join Group D, starting on the outside of row 6 each heat race.

Saturday, June 13, 2026:

All three heats were contested on Saturday. The first heat ended up finishing 6th. It was a pretty good race, and we were figuring out the last bit of improvements we could make. In Heat Two, I got up to 5th by the end of it. Due to an incident at the start that wasn’t completely my fault, I received a sporting DQ by the stewards. This set us back far in the points for making the final. For the third heat I went for redemption and tried to get myself back on track for another good finish. It ended fast when I was swerved into down the straight and ended up falling to last where I pulled in. After these results, we didn’t think there was any way of making the final, so we packed all of our equipment up and discarded our tires. After we got everything ready to go home, somebody came over and asked what we were doing as he showed us that we made the final. We ended up leaving that day and debated on if we were going to try and rebuild everything before the final or not, as I was starting 35th of 36.

Sunday, June 14, 2026:

(Photo: KSP Reportages)

On Sunday, we decided to go rebuild everything and search for our discarded tires. We found three of the four tires and three of the four rain tires as well. The problem with the wet tires was we didn’t have any more besides the three we were issued. For the slicks, we had practice tires, and we talked to the stewards, and they let us replace one of our tires with a practice slick. This put us in the final, and we set off on a dry track. I worked the whole race and got all the way up to 19th, where on the penultimate lap I got taken out. Overall, it was a sad weekend to grasp, but now we move on to Sweden.

Monday, June 15, 2026:

On Monday we went up to Berlin, Germany, and saw many landmarks. We saw the Berlin Wall, which was pretty cool, as it was pretty big. We also stopped in a cathedral, which was huge and had pretty cool architecture. Then I got to drive back on the Autobahn, where our car got up to 135mph (217kph). Overall it was a pretty good day before Tuesday’s travel back home.

Derek Wargo Social Media:

Facebook: Derek Wargo Racing

Instagram: DerekWargoRacing_

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