Mike Wilson is the pilot who won more world championships in karting history. With six world titles gained between 1981 and 1989, he made history as the absolute winner of Formula K 135, the category that represented the International Karting top in years Eighty. He was born in Barnsley, England, on April 27th 1959. As a child he preferred soccer fields than kart tracks. His father, who was an amateur pilot, ran in kart, but he, great Manchester United fan, as soon as he could, went to see his heart team and he completely lost interest in his father’s hobby. Then, suddenly, as twelve years, he changed. On holidays with some friends he began to attend one small track near the camping. The thing excited such a passion in him that after few days his parents had to go and take him because he ran out his money running on hired karts. He began to run in 1972 and soon gained a lot of victories. In 1977 he disputed the first International Competition, the Champions Cup in Jesolo, and he won the third prize. In 1978 he moved to Italy to work for Iame, as pilot and test pilot. In 1979 he gained the Team European Championship with National English Team. But the relationship with his Federation broke up, and after having settled in Italy, he decided to go on running with Italian licence.

In 1980 he passed a rather opaque season (he was also forced to give up the World Championship, because he fell ill with bronchopneumonia), but in 1981 he returned to track to conquer his space at the height of International Karting. CIK (International Karting Commission of FIA) decided to let use the new 135 engines during the World Championship and Wilson, as IAME test pilot, developed the Komet K29, the most competitive engine of this category, produced by the Italian Company. In Parma the English pilot, who ran with an official Birel chassis, did not fail his objective and gained his first world title.

In the following years, always with the official Birel-Iame Team, Wilson won others two World Championships (1982 and 1983) and two European Championships of Formula K (1983 and 1984). He missed the European title of 1982 because of an accident (he fractured his leg and was forced to give up some races), while, during the World Championship of 1984, his engine failed a few hundreds of meters from the finish, when he was ahead of everybody.

In 1985 Birel retired from competitions, Wilson passed to Kalì Kart and was very successful also with the new team, winning his fourth world title on “his” track of Parma. In 1986 he left the World Championship in Jacksonville, in USA, in order to protest, like all the other European pilots, against the safety measures adopted by American organizers. During the World Championship of 1987 he was protagonist of a frightening accident: he collided with an other concurrent and left the track on a stretcher. Most people thought that the Wilson career was, at that point, downhill, but they mistook, because in 1988-89 the English pilot gained two world titles with CRG, reaching a total of six. At the end of 1989 season, as 30 years, he withdrew from races, but he went on working in karting world as team manager, putting his big experience at younger pilots’ disposal.