At the end of November the 2012 Rotax champions will compete in Portugal in the 13th Rotax Max Challenge Grand Final in Portugal. And South Africa has one of the best winning records of all in this series since its inauguration in 1999.
Think of the Rotax Max Challenge Grand Finals as the “Olympics” of international karting. The buzz generated by hosting over 250 drivers from over 60 countries, and their attendant pit crews in a karting village over a week of intense competition has to be experienced to be appreciated.
It is as tribute to the vision of BRP Rotax, the Austrian-based engine supplier, that this event, and indeed this karting class, has grown to be the most important and best-contested karting championship in the world.
Started back in the late 1990s, the Rotax formula for success was simple. The all new class was to provide levels of engine reliability never seen before in karting, and to ensure that every engine supplied to every Rotax competitor was as equal in power output as modern manufacturing techniques could make possible.
What’s more, each and every engine was sealed for the duration of its racing life, being opened only by an accredited Rotax agent, and then re-sealed. A six-month warranty on a racing engine was also a world first and still today Rotax is the only manufacturer doing this!
Other touches introduced were international karting’s first electric start system, a huge boost for drivers who had spun out, and dads with high blood pressure who had become exhausted by push-starting their off-spring in conditions ranging from blazing heat to icy blizzards.
So successful is the Rotax Max Challenge formula that to date some 80 000 of the 125 cc water-cooled karting engines have been sold to competitors all around the world.
The system of running regional, national and inter-continental championships and allowing only the champion drivers from those countries to compete in the annual Grand Finals has been a masterstroke of both marketing for the formula, as well as providing intense competitiveness incentives.
And South Africa, a relative blip on the global map as far as population levels and motoring involvement are concerned (our new car market comprises less than one per cent of global sales) can take pride in the fact that in the 13 years of running the Grand Finals, South African drivers have taken home 10 world championship titles! The only class title that has eluded South Africa all along is the Junior Max, for teenagers.
In addition, a number of drivers have competed in the Grand Finals before the series was only for champions. And the list of these drivers reads like a who’s-who in modern motorsport.
For the record, the 10 SA drivers to win the Grand Finals are: Gavin Cronje in 2000 in Peurto Rico, Claudio Piazza Musso in 2001 in Malaysia, Mark Cronje in 2002 in South Africa, Cristiano Morgado in Egypt in 2004, Wesley Orr in Canary Islands in 2004 and again in 2005 in the DD2 class, Leeroy Pulter in 2008 in Italy, Caleb Williams in Egypt in 2009 (DD2) and again in Italy in 2010 in Max Challenge and Cristiano Morgado in Al Aien in 2011 in the DD2 Masters Category.
In addition to these winning drivers, South African Max Challengers who acquitted themselves brilliantly over the years include Michael Stephen the current SA Production Car Champion, Mathew Hodges who dominated Polo Cup and Devon Roberston, another Polo Cup winner, Tasmin Pepper, who has done well in international single seaters, Marc Murray who has excelled in British Formula Ford, his sister Jennifer, who drove for the South African A1 team and excelled in local Formula Ford racing and Shelby Can Am racing, and Fabienne Lanz who has won internationally in karting series. Cris Morgado also did very well in international Formula Three, as did Arnold Neveling in Euro Challenge and single seaters. And the names of Leeroy Poulter and Marc Cronje are at the top of our local rallying scene.
In 2003, Ed Murray Racing hosted the Grand Finals of the Rotax Max Challenge series on a track designed and built especially for that occasion at Zwartkops, and the track still is the top venue of its type in this country today.
There is no doubt that the Rotax Max Challenge karting series is the cheapest form of international or national karting anywhere in the world, including South Africa, and there is convincing evidence that the precision-level motors built to exacting Austrian standards last up to five times longer than competitive makes of engines.
Rotax have similarly developed tyres specially suited to provide good performance and exceptional life. While some competitors argue that softer tyres actually cost the same (and go faster), because they use new tyres on every occasion, the average competitor appreciates the extra life of Rotax’s Mojo tyres, which allows for practice days and even other regional and club events. A unique bar coding and scanner system TTS was developed to ensure that all competitors get tyres from the same batch, and that only one set is used, per event.
This has been the cornerstone on which the Rotax success story has been built, and it continues to provide the best stepping-stone into four-wheeled motorsport for both youngsters and older drivers alike.
On October 6, four Rotax South African Champions will be declared, all of whom will win a place in the Grand Finals at the end of November in Portugal. They will join four South African who have already won places in the event, by dint of winning the African Open Championships in August. These drivers are Bradley Liebenberg (Junior Max), Mitchel Licen (Senior Max), Luca Canderle (DD2) and Cris Morgado (DD2 Masters). We wish them well.