AFTER GO-KART SUCCESS, 13-YEAR-OLD DREAMS OF FORMULA ONE RACING
BYLINE: JODIE WAGNER, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
DATE: June 16, 2004
PUBLICATION: Palm Beach Post, The (FL)
EDITION: FINAL
SECTION: NEIGHBORHOOD POST
PAGE: 32
MEMO: North Palm Beach / Palm Beach Gardens
Alex Wikell will have a head start on his friends when he begins to prepare for his driver's test.
For the past three years, the 13-year-old has been racing go-karts. Recently, after receiving the blessing of his father, he began driving Formula Renault cars. "(I) like to see how fast you are, to pass all the people," Wikell, a Batt Private School student, said of racing.
At the start, however, Alex was more content to leave the driving to his dad, Joel, a long-time karter and avid racing fan.
When his son was 7, Joel Wikell bought him a go-kart and tried to get him interested in the sport.
Alex was wary.
"The first time we came out, he did a lap or two," Wikell said. "So we gave it another try a couple of weeks later, and (it was) the same thing. So then we put it in the garage, and I said we're going to wait until he asks for it."
Three years later, he did.
"I saw everybody racing," said Alex, who lived in Sweden with his family until two years ago, when they moved to Palm Beach Gardens. "I wanted to start racing again, so I asked my dad if we could try and race, and I started to race."
Initially, his success was limited.
More interested in accompanying his father to the track than winning races, Alex progressed slowly and did not place highly in competition.
"I wouldn't say that he started out exceptionally good," Wikell said. "He needed the first half of the year (to improve), not because of the skill, but because it was more fun for him just to be on the track. It wasn't important to win or do good."
Today, however, it is.
Over the past 1 1/2 years, Alex has taken a greater interest in moving his racing career forward.
Since moving to Palm Beach Gardens, he has spent as much time as he can in training, first at a track in Homestead and most recently at Moroso Motorsports Park, where a new 9/10-mile asphalt kart track recently opened.
He also has taken an active role in helping his team - Fittipaldi Racing - ensure his success by tuning and repairing his go-kart when needed.
"He's very important," Wikell said of his son. "Because he's the one who tells if it's loose in the back, in the front, if it needs more grip, more top speed, more bottom speed, more handling. His interaction with the team crew is very important. He's learned very (well), and I think that's why he's good."
Recently, he's been one of the best.
As an 11-year-old in 2002, he won 15 races and finished No. 1 in the state in the Easy 60 class.
Last year, he moved up to the more difficult Rotax class and finished ninth in the nation despite being one of the youngest drivers in the competition.
This year, he's finished among the top three in five races - all in the Rotax class - and hopes to qualify for his second consecutive trip to nationals, which will be held this fall in Las Vegas.
"Everybody knows his potential," Wikell said.
Lately, however, Alex has been demonstrating his potential in a vehicle other than a go-kart.
A few months ago, he approached his dad about the possibility of driving a Formula Renault, a faster, open-wheel car.
Joel Wikell, understandably, was hesitant at first.
"We were a little bit concerned," he said. "There are a lot of things that are different. He'd never been in a car with a clutch before, and here we had a car with a clutch and a shift. So we said to him, 'you need to try to shift a car, prove to us that you can shift to start with.'"
Alex did just that, and for the past two months, he's been driving a Formula car with tremendous poise.
Still, since he is not old enough to compete, he will continue testing the car while driving the go-kart in races throughout the state.
Ultimately, however, he hopes to switch permanently to Formula competition.
"For a couple of years more, he'll do both of them," Wikell said. "But his goal, like every karter . . . his age, they're going to be a Formula One driver."
- jodie_wagner@pbpost.com