Summarize

The opening round of the Rotax Max Challenge South African Karting Championships proved a day of extremes for Durbanville, Cape Town racer Jason Coetzee as dramatically changing conditions saw everything from a stunning race win to defeat a multiple world champion in Senior Max to a day to (almost) forget in DD2 at the iDube kart track in the KZN Midlands. Coetzee ultimately ended up second overall in Senior and 14th in DD2 at the iDube kart track.

“Wow, that was quite a day,” Jason smiled. “It included everything from a win and pole positions to two penalties in one race! “The opening Senior Max race was incredible on my SAKRA Kosmic — I diced with multiple world champion Cristiano Morgado early on, before I opted to follow him and waited to the last corner to make my move to win and beat the boss on his home track - one of my better karting achievements so far!

I started race 2 on pole position and diced with Cristiano again, but Jono Pieterse beat us both and Cristiano got me back on the final lap so I ended up third.”I was one of several drivers to make a wrong tyre choice in the final and opted for slicks and it rained again, so I ended up struggling home to 8th behind the seven drivers who gambled on wets, but ahead of the rest of the drivers stuck on slicks. Second overall is a good result and a strong start — we can drop the 8th as the season goes on but that first heat win will also be one to remember!

“DD2 was a more difficult weekend with my EMR Extreme CRG - I qualified well and was up to fourth, but dropped down to 15th and then set the fastest lap of the race as I fought back to 13th, but then my nose cone was loose, which meant a 5 second penalty dropped me to 16th and then I was one of several drivers to be found underweight by a dodgy scale and lost our result. “But I was on pole and then struggled with a misfire to drop down the field before holding off my hometown rival Seb Boyd to end up 11th in the race and 14th for the day.

”Special thanks to all who did their best to hand me the best possible kart on a difficult weekend including my folks, Umpie Swart, Ralph Odendaal and Cleopas Mbawa — we will take the positives home, but there’s no rest because it’s the third round of the WP Regionals this weekend at Killarney, Saturday 7 April, so let’s race again!”