Summarize

Double South African champion Visser brothers, Kyle and Charl enjoyed a challenging weekend at a sodden second round of the Rotax Max Challenge SA national karting championship at Port Elizabeth’s Celso Scribante Short Circuit. But that did not prevent Kyle from taking his first Junior Max win in the opening race, while Charl made best of a difficult weekend to keep well in the Senior Max title chase.

SA Mini Max champion Kyle had his first under-15 Junior Max win in fine style — at national level in the sodden opening heat before ending second and fourth in the second and third races to end up second for the day. “Today was tough,” Kyle admitted. “I was very happy to qualify third on a perfect dry track Friday afternoon, but it was pouring with rain on Saturday morning so we had to change the whole set-up.

“It worked! “I moved up to second on the first lap and passed Troy Dolinshek for the lead with two laps to go and won my first Junior Max race in a national! “The track was a bit different in race 2 and I could not catch Troy, but we had it right for the final and I led the first few laps but made a small mistake and ended up fourth for second overall, while I jumped up a few places in the championship too, so a good weekend for sure!”

Elder brother and SA Junior Max champion Charl had a more difficult weekend after qualifying a strong second. “We made a few wrong calls on our wet set-up and my kart was not ideal to start with and I ended up third in race 1,” Charl explained. “Then we went the wrong way with gearing and race 2 was even more of a challenge, but I hung in for fifth. The final was looking better but the track came to the three guys behind me and I ended up fifth again.

“So I ended up fifth overall, but the points between us were very close and I moved from third to second in the championship just four behind leader Canderle, so it was a good weekend from that point of view.” 

The Vissers now remain in PE for the Rok national next week before chasing their WP championship aspirations at Killarney on 18 May.