This weekend sees the final round of the 2014 Western Province karting championships going down at Killarney with everything to fight for in all races on Saturday.
With Cape drivers having taken four of the eight national karting titles on offer in South Africa over the past few weeks, Killarney has pretty much established itself as the capital of SA karting, so there’s a lot at stake this weekend.
Nowhere is that more evident than in the 60cc primary school age Maxterino championship where it will be a clash of the champions between newly crowned SA Mini Rok 60 champion JP Hamman (RKT Kosmic) and new SA Maxterino champion Jason Coetzee (RKT Zanardi) for the WP title. But they are not alone – never discount Charl Visser (Battery Energy Kosmic) or Aidan Strydom (TurboTech TonyKart) while class newcomers Joseph Oelz (Clear GoPro Zanardi) and Tate Bishop (Zanardi) will be itching to end their maiden year in that class off with a win.
Kohen Bam (SAKRA RKT Kosmic) holds a comfortable high school Junior Max 125 title advantage over Delano Fowler (Suprocom TonyKart) and Henry Bam (RKT SKARA Kosmic) with the impressive Dino Stermin (Designer Trims Zanardi), Chadley Swartz (SAKRA Kosmic), leading class rookie Giordano Lupini (La vie de Luc AutoWeek Zanardi), Isabella Fowler (Suprocom Tony Kart), Sebastian Boyd (Boyd Freight Kosmic) and Dario Busi (Automan TonyKart) all ready to throw a spanner in the championship fight works.
The dominant Troy Dolinschek will want to avenge Jason MacBeath breaking his 21-race under-8 50cc Cadet winning streak last time out as much as he wants to wrap up his title on Saturday. But a number of drivers including Kyle Visser, Joaquin de Oliveira, Valentino Hoffman and Paul Malcolm will want to make that as difficult as possible, too.
The quickest DD2 Gearbox class will see a straight fight for title honours between Jonathan Thomas (Partners Hair CRG) and Stephen Wells (Zanardi), while Luke van Rensburg will be out to beat both of them. Late starter Johan Hamman (Hammanshof Birel) will continue in his unlikely quest to catch DD2 Masters title leader Jacques de Bruyn (Zanardi) and second man Vic Houdoul.
It’s a case of beat Dale Fourie in the Cape Clubmans championship with class A title rival Mark Manson still in the hunt. James Fraser and Dylan Mitchell will fight it out for class B title honours while Mike Cook is already class C Clubmans champion.
The other Cape karting class to already have a 2014 champion is Max Challenge, where Luke Herring (RKT Kosmic) added the local title to his double-SA championships in that class when it was confirmed Challenge will not run Saturday as a result of a lack of entries following a date change clashing with other events. Regular rivals and Cape karting graduates Jonathan Aberdein and Umpie Swart will be racing Polo Cup at this weekend’s Super Series and Eugene Deneyssen and Julian van der Watt will be driving Formula Ford there too.
The rest of the classes still have it all to fight for however and Saturday’s action promises to be brisk at the very least, with five brilliant championship chases coming to a head at Killarney. Don’t miss the action – Killarney on Potsdam Road Milnerton and expect brilliant racing, a cool atmosphere, good commentary and great grub and drinks at the Kart Café in the pits. See you at the Killarney karts!