For those of you that I have not met my name is Michael Abbate. I'm a Las Vegas native and racing has been my life for as long as I can remember. At the age of three my parents bought me a "Big Wheels Monster Truck" and I drove that truck all day long. Even when the batteries ran low I would find some way to stay busy with it. At the age of six while visiting my grandparents in Florida my family and I made a stop at the local family fun center. Some how they were able to talk the employee who worked there into letting me drive one of the family fun karts by myself. This was a turning point in my life and from that point on I knew that I wanted to race cars.

For the next few years I bugged my mom and dad for a go-kart but it seemed to be a distant dream. My mother and father enrolled me in extracurricular after school activities like baseball and basketball and it was fun but I didn't have a passion for it. It wasn't until my tenth birthday on December 22, 1995 when I received my first real race kart and from here is when things started getting crazy.

I race locally for a year at the Las Vegas Kart Club (L.V.K.C.). My family and many others would race at this club every other weekend. It was a nice laid back "'ma and 'pa" atmosphere. The International Karting Federation (I.K.F.) has two classes for the eight to twelve year-olds, one being a restricted 100cc Yamaha and the other being the 80cc Comer. The kart my parents bought me was used from California, it was a 80cc Comer engine on a Top-kart chassis this combination was very popular in Calif. The 100cc Yamaha's were the popular motor for the l.v.k.c. The two motors a very comparable and that is why the I.K.F. rules allow you to run the Yamaha in the Comer class. But the local club chose not to honor this because they said that the Comer would have to start last since it was racing in the Yamaha's class. My parents and I didn't make a fuss about this because my first three races I had to start last anyway because of my rookie status.

Even though I had to start last it wasn't long until I was winning locally. That year I won my class championship, Rookie of the year, and I was one point away from winning the over-all points championship. After winning all of this in just a year my parents decided that we needed to travel in order to find tougher competition. In order to do this we had to race regionally in the I.K.F. and that's exactly what we did. The 1997 season started out in Phoenix, this was going to be my first big out-of town race and man did I had the butterflies. I was used to racing twelve to fifteen other drivers locally and there was thirty-two entered just in this one race. The end result was me getting lapped twice. This was a huge disappointment and eye opener for me. I became so accustom to winning every other weekend I didn't know how to lose.

Needless to say my dad didn't accept it either so in order to fix this problem we practiced and practiced and practiced. Toward the middle of the year we started getting our act together and at the end of the year we traveled all the way to Marshalltown, Iowa for the I.K.F. Grand Nationals. All kids in my age bracket who qualified to enter this race through out the United States traveled to Marshalltown in order to get their chance to be the next grand national champion. The event was a week long and it was the biggest race of the year for go karters. For qualifying I set the track record and ultimately ended up winning the1997 I.K.F Grand Nationals.

Through out the next ten years I set:
Four Track Records
3 International Karting Federation Screaming Eagle Awards (Grand National Fastest Qualifier)
2 International Karting Federation DUFFY (the highest award given in karting)
2 Class Championships
2 National Class Championships
3 Grand National Championships
1 World Championship

At the age of fifteen I began my endeavor to make the transition into full size race cars. In 2001 I was youngest driver ever picked for Skip Barbers Karting scholarship. In 2002 I was the youngest driver pick for the Inaugural Red Bull Drivers Search. The driver evaluation was a week long process which took place overseas in Nice, France at the Paul Richard Test track. I was one of sixteen driver picked throughout the U.S. All sixteen of us spent three days in a Red Bull school car (similar to a Formula Renault) we were surveyed and critiqued and the judges would eliminate drivers daily. On the fourth day I and five other drivers were chosen to go forth with the search and we spent the day competing against each other in Opel Formula 3 cars. There were two cars that six of us shared. Our times were all very close and at the end of the fourth day I was eliminated. Their reasoning for this was that if I were to be one of the four chosen I would have to drop out of high school to move to Europe and race. They assured me that I did such a great job and that next year there would be a spot for me.

The next year I was not one of the candidates picked for the search and the year after I called and sent my resume in for once last chance. They replied back to me and said the owners of Red Bull have decided that they are looking for younger drivers now below the age of eighteen. I explained my situation to the search recruiters and they were aware of my situation and who I was but they could only respond with an apology and explain that it was out of their hands. This was a big disappointment in my life but I tried hard not to give up.

The next few years I was able to get a few different tests in a handful of different cars but financially I was unable to secure a full season of racing. The last few years I have been able to race karts a few times when I given opportunity but I have also been working as a driving instructor for many different companies on the side. My full time job is a safety inspector for Perini Building Company at project City Center in Las Vegas. Since I have not been racing as much as I used to my father and I have realized that we miss it to much to not do it any more. For the 2009 season my father and I have purchased a Legend car that we will race on the inside road course of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the outside road course of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and primarily the 1/8th mile Bullring circle track of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.