Colombian racer, Martin Cardenas, rode his Kawasaki ZX-10R to victory in the Unlimited Grand Prix, Unlimited Superbike and Unlimited Grand Prix classes at CCS Florida’s season-opening event at Homestead-Miami Speedway. He was undefeatable on a brand new machine, which was only put together 10 days earlier, and as a first-timer at the Homestead course. Florida’s current number two rider, Dave McEnery was the holeshot winner of the Unlimited Grand Prix event and opened an early lead on the rest of the field. By lap two Cardenas had worked his way up from a seventh row start to second place, just ahead of fellow Colombian racer, Santiago Villa. McEnery maintained his lead up until the final lap of the race when Cardenas finally closed the gap and made his passing move through the hairpin to take over the lead and win the race. Cardenas was the fastest racer of the day. Even with unfavorable conditions including overcast skies, misting rain, and gravel on the turn twelve/thirteen portion of the track from a prior incident. He was clocked at 1:24.980 during the Unlimited Grand Prix race. This lap time was a mere fraction of a second above the record set by Geoff May during the Race of Champions event three years ago. May’s record lap time still stands at 1:24.373. On the podium, Villa remarked on Cardenas, “I knew he was coming. He was coming for everything. It is an honor to race with him because he is the most popular and the best rider in my country, Colombia. He’s done many things for my country, so I admire him a lot. And man, that guy can really race well.” McEnery said, “I’m happy with the race. I rode hard every lap, even though my team gave me some signals saying I had a little gap, and I didn’t really make any mistakes, he just got me there at the end.” Although Cardenas is a seasoned rider in the road racing world, he is a fresh face to the American arena and plans to run the Kawasaki as a privateer in the AMA National circuit this year. On the podium, he stated, “This year, I’m going to race the AMA Championship in Superstock. I’m doing privateer and I’m going to race this Kawasaki, and let’s see what happens.” Results: Expert Unlimited Grand Prix: 1. Martin Cardenas (Kaw ZX-10); 2. David McEnery (Suz GSX-R1000); 3. Santiago Villa (Yam YZF-R1); 4. Greg Melka (Suz GSX-R1000); 5. Darren Luck (Suz GSX-R750); 6. Marco Martinez (Suz GSX-R1000); 7. Chad Herrmann (Suz GSX-R1000); 8. Rodolfo Ramirez (Suz GSX-R1000); 9. Lars Remsen (Suz GSX-R1000); 10. Michael Rouleau (Suz GSX-R1000).