Summarize

Pretoria’s Zwartkops International Kart Raceway played host to the third round of Gauteng’s Northern Regions Kart Championships on Saturday where great racing entertained across the board as always.

A decent size field of top class DD2 gearbox karts provided great racing as always as Justin Allison made his trip from Bloemfontein all that much more worth his while when he took a third, a second and a final race win to take the day and the winner’s trophy home to the Free State. Jamie Smith ended up second, but third placed Bradley Liebenberg’s run of dreadful luck continued when he retired from the final after winning the first two races of the day.

Liebenberg still managed to edge Wayland Wyman for fourth ahead of Llewellyn Myburgh, Brandon Smith and another man all out of luck, Nicholas Verheul — the man who dominated last meeting's best result was a third on the day. Carlo Olivier ended 8th from Nicolas Spanoyannis and Pascal Acquaah, while Philippe Chapat beat Steve Beaumont two races to one to take the Masters gong.

Wayland Wyman took the opening two Senior Max race wins, but young Jayden Els, now a class regular, beat him to the final race. So Wayman took the Senior day from Els with Dane van Heerde third from East London lass Shannon Jackson, Taiibi Tucci and Jurgen Pommersheim with Nicholas Verheul next up from Grant Mason.

Fresh from the lights and action of his FIA Convention speech, Kwanda delivered a consistent performance to take all three closely-fought under-15 Junior Max wins, but he was kept quite honest by Aqil Alibhai and the find of the Junior season so far, Jordan Brooks. Ethan Coetzee ended fourth from Ndumiso Bungane, Lorenzo Cianfanelli, Kgalema Mngadi and Godfrey Malumane.

For once, under-13 Mini Max was not just the 'Troy Snyman & Muhammad Wally show’, even if those two shared out the wins two-to-one. The under-13 class is becoming most competitive now with several drivers now able to mix as Matthew Morrel and Ghazi Motlekarboth proved by taking the second places two-to-one respectively, while Taya Van der Laan, Bjorn Bertholdt, Mandla Mlangeni, Giulio Cianfanelli and Jayden Goosen were all in the mix too.

Under-11 Micro Max proved one of the races of the day, especially in the last heat where a fraction of a second split the quickest lap times and Mohammed Moerat had to fight hard to make it a clean sweep for the day over Erich Heystek, Kent Swartz, Durban visitor Dhivyen Naidoo, Wian Boshoff and Luviwe Sambudla. A little further back, Kyle Beukes ended 7th from Ntiyiso Mabunda, Caleb Cotterell and Mahlori Mabunda.

The continued growth of baby Bambino grids is great news for South African karting, with 17 karts on the grid at the recent PE national and now nine kids on the grid at Zwartkops with several more youngsters practicing and set to race soon. So much so, that Zwartkops had two out of town entries and lo and behold, Caleb Odendaal and Rayan Karriem beat the locals to the top step of the podium.

They do not count for Northern Regions points however, leaving race 1 winner Tshepang Shisinwana to take top spot among the locals ahead of Keagan Beaumont, Troy Van der Laan, rookie Cristian Verheul, Mattao Mason, Aiden Beaumont and newcomer Ruald Hartzenberg.

The Northern Regions return to action at the fourth round at the Vereeniging Kart Track Saturday 8 June.