ZWARTKOPS PUTS THE SEAL ON 2010 ROTAX MAX CHALLENGE CHAMPIONSHIP

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Marc Murray (65) leads the field in the Rotax Max DD2 Class on his way to the 2010 championship at Zwartkops at the weekend. On the extreme left is Ian Young (2) who finished just two points behind Murray. The past weekend’s South African Rotax Max Challenge 2010 final round at Zwartkops saw some nail-bitingly-close racing and some even tighter run-ins to the final championship points tallies.
 
In two days of high drama that saw some fancied competitors leave the track mid-race and lose out on vital finishing positions, the cream eventually rose to the top.

 
And at the top of the SA karting world was Pretoria’s Marc Murray, who drove coolly to minimise the handicap of an off-the-pace engine in the weekend’s fourth and final national, to shade Ian Young in the fast kart racing class in the country – the DD2 Gearbox Class – by just two points.

While Murray has been the quickest DD2 driver in the country all season, Young had the measure of the competition this weekend past. He scored two huge-points-scoring wins, and it was only an unfortunate excursion in the second pre-final that saw him drop vital points, which ended up costing him the title.
 
The consistent Sean Frost was always in the hunt and finished a fighting third for the season, while Nicholas Verheul scored an impressive win in the second pre-final and a second place in the last DD2 race of the day to cement his fourth place in the points table. In the DD2-Masters class for drivers 32 years-and-older, it was Gary Marais who ran out a popular winner, ahead of his “old” protagonists John van Wyk and George Dos Ramos.
 
Max Challenge champ for 2010 Caleb Williams leads runner-up Ryan Frost at Zwartkops at the weekend. In Senior Max,  a class that carries arguably as much status as DD2, the single-speed class saw domination by the super-quick Caleb Williams. He ran out the winner to add the Max Challenge title to his growing list of trophies, by an impressive 22 points over Ryan Frost. Aidan de Nobrega, who challenged for the title in the first two rounds of the nationals in Cape Town and KZN, had to be content with third after an indifferent weekend at Zwartkops, which saw him finish no better than fifth in the four races, which counted for half the points in the championship. Shau Mafuna had a very strong finish in the championship after a slow start to the season,  to place fourth overall, ahead of Ricky Hill
 
Mathew Swanepoel, Junior Max SA champion for 2010Junior Max was a dogfight of note between Mathew Swanepoel and Kelvin van der Linde. The title went to Swanepoel  by just 0,3 points and there was much angst in the famous Van der Linde racing camp, where it was hoped that both Kelvin and his younger brother Sheldon would walk away with titles. Chad Maciver was a couple of points adrift in third, followed by Aston Hare, the initially promising Luke Herring hanging in for fifth, with Shayur Harpul in sixth.
 
Mini Max saw Sheldon van der Linde have a coming together and a costly  excursion in the second pre-final which effectively put paid to the younger Van der Linde’s championship charge. A low points haul in that race and the fact he had to come from behind in the second final meant that Cape Town’s Marco Busi ran out an elated winner, after strong, consistent finishes throughout the weekend in this highly competitive class.
 
Eugene Denyssen and Julian van der Watt were the two final-race winners at the weekend, but they didn’t carry enough season points into the final to be in with a chance. Thus Aedan van Vuuren ran out third (behind Van der Linde), Denyssen fourth, Chad Daniel fifth and Van der Watt sixth in the championship.
 
The Maxetrino Class only carried SA Challenge status for 2010 (next year it gets full SA Championship status), but it is already the most popular class in karting after only just 12 months of being in existence. The one make sealed engine, one chassis and tire formula has provided extremely competitive racing and affordable racing.
 
Clinton Bezuidenhout was odds-on favourite to win and he didn’t disappoint, scoring a perfect record of four wins to round out his fantastic season. Kohen Bam fought hard, but had to settle for second, ahead of the promising Chadley Swartz, while Daygin Prescott had a strong finish to his season to place fourth (Daygin’s father Myk recently set a  Guiness World record for 48 hours solo driving in a kart!).
 
The consistent Keagan Masters placed fifth and Henry Bam rounded out the top six in the tiddler National class. So ended an impressive year for the Rotax Max Challenge series, with swelling filds heartening the organisers and karters alike. For the record, 27 drivers scored points in DD2,  52 drivers scored points in Max Challenge, while there were 39 Junior Max, 25 Mini Max and 32 Maxterino points scorers in the season.
 
Four South African drivers (the winners of DD2, DD2-Masters, Senior Max and Junior Max) will represent South Africa in the Rotax Max Challenge Grand Finals held in La Conca Italy on November 15 to 21. On arrival, they’ll be presented with a brand new chassis, dyno-tested engine, Mojo tyres, trolley, tools, fuel and lubricants to conentest the event. All courtesy of BRP Rotax. This will be the 11th RMCGF, where the best drivers from 56 countries fight for the crown. South African drivers have won the the title many times in the past decade.