Bergfelt Racing Enterprises, LLC.

Bergfelt Racing Enterprises, LLC also known as B. R. E. Small Engines, LLC, has been serving karting enthusiasts since1978 and is
the most comprehensive go-kart shop in Western Pennsylvania.  This leader in karting focuses on;

1. supplying and setting up CRG and Mach1 as well as used chassis that are usually sold on consignment,

2. kart engine sales, rebuilding, blueprinting and modification, especially Rotax Max, Parilla Sudam and Comer C-50,

3. arrive and drive services, (This service is temporarily limited for the 2007 season)

4. fabrication of Bergfelt's Bumpers, Dually Hubs, and other karting products, and

5. is a source for most karting accessories.  in addition to new items, Bergfelt Racing Enterprises, LLC has a large selection of previously owned parts being sold on consignment.

In addition to that, it serves as national headquarters of the Unlimited All-Stars, the Keystone Unlimited All-Stars and the Keystone / Buckeye Champ Car Rotax Max Series.

It should be understood that this is not a discount warehouse with impersonal service, rather it is a complete karting service center that caters to the individual needs of kart racers, especially new comers to the sport.   Bergfelt Racing Enterprises, LLC  is the Western Pennsylvania representative for SSC East, who is the Eastern United States importer of the many time World Champion CRG racing karts and Rotax kart engines.  They were one of the first dealers of the CRG Heron Oval chassis and were instrumental in it's development.   In the late months of 2005 B.R.E. Small Engines, LLC was appointed the representative of Mach1 karts for the Pittsburgh Metropolitan area. Bergfelt Racing Enterprises, LLC is a full service kart shop that operates out of dedicated building that boasts a large show-room, shop that provides engine work, fabricating and machine work, and a considerable storage area.  In addition to all of this, they provide expert track-side service with their well-equipped parts and service trailer.

The story of Bergfelt Racing Enterprises, LLC is really the saga of Mark Bergfelt's passion for the sport of kart racing.  Growing up in a working class neighborhood on the North Side of the City of Pittsburgh, it was more likely that he would have developed an interest in football, baseball and perhaps hockey; the more common pastimes of boys from the Burgh.  Clumsy with sticks and balls, Mark found his niche in his dad's basement workshop, building simple gravity powered carts, then a paper mache bodied soap box derby car and finally a yard kart built from discarded bed angle iron.  That kart, powered by a 2 hp Briggs & Stratton reel type lawn mower engine was used many hours on the hilly and windy roads of a local cemetery.

After two fun summers that kart was converted to a McCulloch powered race kart that first saw action at the Shoemaker Motor Sports Track in 1972. During that period of time the Bergfelt family race team consisting of Mark, his brother Eric and their dad, also occasionally visited Kugler Raceway Park (now Adkins Speedway) and even competed at the 1974 WKA nationals at Batavia, New York.

This kart was originally built as a yard kart by Mark Bergfelt out of a discarded angle iron bed frame and other materials that he could find for next to nothing.   it was converted to the race kart shown here to comply with International Kart Federation rules. This picture was taken in 1972 after it's first season of competition.

In 1974 Mark enlisted in the United States Air Force.  For the first two years of his stint with military service he was stationed at Castle Air Force Base in Central California.  Since he was stationed just minutes away from the then brand new Atwater International Speedway, as it was known then, he joined up with the Merced Kart Club, bought a kart from a local manufacturer, and began racing at Atwater as well as Kerman, Newman and Lodi.  For quite a while he toted his kart around on the roof of his car.

While stationed in California, Bob Terry, a local stock car legend, who was a regular competitor at the Merced County Fairgrounds Speedway in NASCAR's California Stock Car Division, took Mark under his wing.   Mark worked long and late on that stock car but what he learned from Bob about racing in general and car set-up turned out to be incredibly valuable.  Bob also allowed Mark to use his garage/shop to work on his kart and build a trailer.

After two years in California, the young airman was transferred to McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey.  At McGuire AFB, he was trusted with the job as a Supply Inspector.  It was not exciting work, but it was educational.  Although he never raced there, Mark did get involved in the kart racing activities at New Egypt Speedway.  On those weekends when he could get home to Pittsburgh to spend time with his girl friend Teresa, Mark would team up with his brother and go kart racing at Navarre Speedway in Ohio.

After being discharged from the Air Force, Mark enrolled at California State College (of Pennsylvania) as an industrial arts (education) major. He did so to expand on his technical knowledge and skills and also to learn how to better share his passion for designing, and building things, especially machinery.  Bergfelt Racing Enterprises was born in the spring of 1978.  Mark decided to use his knowledge of mechanics to create his own summer job.  His father gave him permission to use half of his two car garage to service mostly lawnmowers and some karts as well.  The business allowed  the opportunity for Mark and his fiance Teresa to be regular participants at Woodland Speedway, Columbiana Speedway, Red Line Kart Track, Dusty Valley Speedway and an occasional trip to the indoor races at Marion, Ohio.  Mark graduated Suma Cum Lade in December 1980.

It was not difficult for the new teacher to secure a position in the Pittsburgh Public Schools.  After being with the district for several years, Mark had the opportunity to participate on a curriculum writing committee to revise the power mechanics curriculum.  Knowing Mark's interest in kart racing, the committee suggested that Mark write an instruction book, Build a Go-Kart, to be used as a portion of the second year of that course of study.  The book became available to teachers in 1987. Mark hopes to one day find the time to make a pdf version of his book and the curriculum that he developed around it available to the general public and especially other teachers.

At about the same time, Don Gamble a fellow industrial arts/technical education teacher who was also very involved in the auto racing scene in the Pittsburgh Area and who also published The Official Speedway Program, approached Mark about writing a kart racing column, "The Karting Connection" for the publication.  Mark's column immediately became very popular with kart racers in the region.  As time went on the publication grew and eventually became know as RPM (Racing's almost Perfect Magazine).  Mark continued with his column until the Magazine was sold.  Don was, and still is, a very industrious person, and also hosted a weekly racing talk show, Rappin' on Racin'.  The three hour show was very popular with gear heads in the Greater Pittsburgh area.  Mark contributed to the show with a weekly segment also call the "Karing Connection".  The Burris Western Pennsylvania Speedway Series and the WKA regional series The Kingdom of Outlaws, were Mark served on the board of directors as the 2-Cycle technical inspector, provided much of the material for the column.  Mark's segment was an integral part of Don's radio show for seven years.  Several years later he began writing occasional technical articles for National Kart News and for a while was listed as one of their contributing editors.

In 1988 the School District of Pittsburgh received a very large grant from the Anne E. Casey Foundation to develop programs aimed at students who were at risk of not graduating from high school to encourage them to stick it out.  An assistant principal suggested that Mark present a proposal to develop the Oliver High Go-Kart Building and Racing Club.  The book Build a Go-Kart would provide the basic blue print for the karts. The club was formed and in the spring of 1989 twelve student made karts were on hand for action at Blanket Hill Speedway.  Since that time, Mark has been assigned to two other schools and has developed similar clubs at each.  For more information about the high school karting program that Mark developed go to http://www.bergfeltracing.com/carrickkartclub.html .  Mark recognized the efforts of his students with his radio spots and magazine columns.  Word of mouth also contributed to the local fame of the club. 

In 1990 Mark recognized that the karting class in which he competed, unlimited 2-cycle, was beginning to draw fewer and fewer entries. Not wanting to see the class die, he decided to do something about it.  He selected a series of high quality and profile races in the region, wrote up and duplicated that schedule and distributed it to as many interested racers as he could.  Involvement with the magazines and radio allowed Mark forums for spreading the word about his Unlimited Professional Dirt Kart Challenge Circuit.  The promoter of another regional series with a similar sounding name threatened to sue Mark over his choice of name.  Mark's reply was that he did not like the name any way and hosted a contest to come up with a more suitable name; The Unlimited All-Stars.  To learn more about the Unlimited All-Stars go to http://www.unlimitedallstars.org

The Pittsburgh Chapter of the Arthritis Foundation called upon Mark to serve as the Technical Director for their Mini-Grand Prix for the first time around 1992.  Mark, with help and support from his wife Teresa, served in that capacity for seven seasons and received a National Volunteer Service Citation from the Arthritis foundation for his work.

Bergfelt Racing Enterprises, LLC has used three different buildings as it's base of operation.  The first, as mentioned earlier, was Mark's dad's garage.  The second was Mark's two story garage (well actually it had a basement) that was behind the home that he and Teresa owned in Pittsburgh.  The business was moved to West Mayfield, Pennsylvania, it's current location, in 1994.

When Mark began his teaching career, he thought that he had made a mistake.  He was working mostly with ninth and tenth grade students who for the most part had no interest in learning anything.  They especially did not want to think very hard or get their hands dirty and that was a definite requirement for success in Mark's hands-on classes. The student's lack of work ethic was a great source on consternation for Mark. Since he had to get additional college credits to maintain his teaching certification any way, he decided to start working on a mechanical engineering degree at the University of Pittsburgh in the evening.  Shortly there after he took the certification test to teach vocational small engine repair.  He passed that test easily.  Vocational students are usually juniors and seniors and Mark hoped that those students would be more focused.  That, in many cases did not pan out, but Mark began to have success with some students and that he found to be very encouraging.  At this point he found teaching to be much more rewarding than it had been.  After a meeting with the Director of Vocational Education of Pittsburgh who suggested that Mark consider a similar position some day, he decided to cease taking mechanical engineering classes and enter the vocational directors program at Pitt.  From that he learned that he did not want to aspire to an administrative position; it was just not for him.  He did however, manage to earn enough credit to acquire the equivalency of a masters degree, which he needed to make his teaching certification permanent.  Mark has developed a unique curriculum, student assessment  system and teaching style.  As a result he has helped hundreds of inner city students get a better start in life and knowledge of that gives him great satisfaction.

Before Bergfelt Racing Enterprises was moved to West Mayfield, Mark usually hired his best students to help out with the lawnmower repair portion of the business.  In the early years, about 80 % of the business volume was outdoor power equipment work.  After moving the business to West Mayfield, the business volume and focus gradually moved more toward the karting side.  After the move, Mark worked the business, part time during the school year and full time in the summer.  It got to the point where he was overwhelmed with work and Joe Mudrick was hired as service manager and he focused on the outdoor power equipment end of the business and that allowed Mark to concentrate more on the karting side of the business.  Joe did a fantastic job, but as time went on, the karting side of the business continued to increase but requests for mower, chain saw and other equipment work began to diminish.  This was mostly attributed to trends in the market.  The price of lawnmowers has gone down, or at least not gone up.  It has become in many cases more economical to replace that equipment than repair it.  Joe was offered a job at a larger company that offered more opportunity for him and in the Fall of 2005 Mark found himself operating solo again.  Consequently he restructured the business to what it is now dedicated solely to karting.  He has never enjoyed it more.
     

Click on picture for larger image.

7-11-07