From a young age, Steven Mulvaney fell in love with the world of motorsports and used to watch his uncle and cousin race at Ta’ Qali.

Decades on, he has become the first Maltese karting deaf driver to participate in a European championship, even securing fourth place in his category.

“I hope, in the future, more deaf people become interested in the sport. I would be very happy to train them,” Mulvaney says, admitting, however, the frustration of securing sponsors to make the dream come true for other enthusiasts with a disability.

Eighty-eight European deaf drivers came together to compete in the European Deaf Karting Championship in Slovakia, which took place between September 8 and 9.

Among them was Mulvaney, 36, who was born deaf to two deaf parents and whose first language is the Maltese sign language.

Despite the lack of a local go-karting racetrack and the misconception that deaf drivers are “lower class drivers”, Mulvaney followed his dream.

He headed to Slovakia and placed fourth out of 22 drivers in his category and 26 overall in the competition.

“It was a wonderful experience meeting other deaf people, all of them motorsports enthusiasts,” he told Times of Malta.

Mulvaney started to compete in karting competitions at 16, even placing second in the first competition he participated in.

Deaf people can do any sport they wish to do

“There wasn’t any formal training, I used to just follow what my uncle and cousin told me about cars in general and I would practise a lot.”

He also participated in Autocross racing and his love of the sport led him to pursue his studies to become a motor vehicle technician.

The owner of a car, motorbike and boat licence, Mulvaney wears his cochlear implant in the car but not when he drives his motorbike as it is uncomfortable to wear it underneath his helmet.

Still, he says he senses the presence of an emergency car or ambulance on the road as he can make out the sound of the siren.

“I also race without my cochlear implant, so I mostly feel for the vibrations,” he explained.

“A deaf driver uses their sense of sight and the lack of hearing doesn’t affect much. A deaf driver will know the speed to go through the track, how to turn and when to break – the same as hearing drivers.”

Mulvaney met many drivers from across the world during the two-day competition, with half of them being professional karting drivers.

The Individual European Championship consisted of three heats and one final. The ‘heat’ is five minutes of qualifying, followed by a 10-minute race, which is repeated three times.

“When I started the first race, I was doing well, staying ahead of the rest of the participants,” he said, before the go-kart started performing poorly.

The final race proved to be very tiring as it was lengthy and he was competing with professional drivers.

“I managed to stay third in the race until two minutes before finishing time,” he said.

The sponsorship issue

During his time as an autocross driver, Mulvaney found it difficult to secure sponsorships.

“When some companies realise I am deaf, they decide not to sponsor me because they think I was of a lower racing level than other drivers.

“There were times I would give up. Sponsorship is important as a racing car is very expensive to maintain, so without any sponsors I had to foot all the costs and even do the mechanical work myself.”

He hopes such misconceptions will end and that it becomes easier for deaf sports people to find sponsors.

He also underlined the need for Malta to have a proper racetrack, something the government promised to build back in 2021.

While he did not own his own go-kart, he used to practise at the badger karting track in Attard almost daily.

“The track closed during the pandemic and there isn’t another place where one can go and rent a go-kart and practise.”

Ultimately, Mulvaney says the biggest struggle for a deaf person in Malta is accessibility to communication and the fact that people do not know how to use sign language.

“At the bank, hospital, police stations and, sometimes, even our work, we only find hearing people and they think we can lip read but deaf people use different modes of communication,” he explained.

Not all deaf people know how to lip read or use sign language and some use only one mode of communication.

“My dream is that the deaf community has more accessibility. This can be done by increasing the number of interpreters, more accessibility on TV, more awareness among the community about being deaf and learning basic sign language.”

Mulvaney encouraged deaf people, especially young children, to take on any sport their heart desires and, if any are interested in karting or motorsports, they can reach out to him.

“Deaf people can do any sport they wish to do. Deaf people can do anything except hear.”