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I'm on the flight Abu Dhabi-Milan. It’s 2 am and my seat near the emergency exit induces sleep; so, it’s just after takeoff and I find myself in another world.

The world of karts, of course. In fact, I talk about and live for Karting every day, so it's fitting that the sport also accompanies me when I’m sleeping.

But this karting world is a different karting world from the one I experienced on the track for the 2016 World Championship in Bahrain just a few hours earlier. It's all a bit weird, twisted.

For one thing, Pedro Hiltbrand, who has just become world champion in OK with CRG, has become an official Tony Kart driver.

But how? He won the OK World Championship, the OK European Championship, the KZ2 International Super Cup with CRG, and then he leaves? Yes, I did say it was a strange world!

I walk about and reach the BirelArt Racing tent, that of the official team, and all the karts are fitted with TM Racing engines. OK, OKJ, KZ and KZ2, they are all TM engines.

Not even a glimpse of the usual IAME engines fitted a few hours earlier, but only the same engines you can find even under the tent of the IPK group brands (Prague and FK), in CRG, in Sodi ...

By the way, in Sodi I meet Alex Irlando who is no longer with Energy, but is now with Sodi as a KZ2 drive.

A bit dazed, I leave and go to CRG, to ask about Pedro.

I get there, I look for Dino Chiesa and they tell me that he is no longer there with the main team, I find him further down at the bottom of the tent of a new articulated lorry with karts (Zanardi, it seems) that mount the official IAME engines.


" "The only official IAME engines" they emphasise. And I reply, "what do you mean?".

They explain that IAME now gives its official engines only to the Dino team, so it's not just the Dino Chiesa team, but it is also in some way the official IAME team. And what about the other teams that use Zingonia material? They turn to speak to some motorists.


I'm not able to make any sense of anything, I'm really confused. I go directly to the tent they pointed out to me, that of Dino Chiesa and IAME.
And who do I find there?

Tom Joyner. Is it a joke??? No, it really is him. But wasn’t he in the CRG tent during the World Championships? The doors suddenly close, I am about to run away ... But everything starts wobbling.


Turbulence! I wake up a bit confused, but now I understand: it was all a dream!


Or perhaps not...