Summarize

Balmy late autumn sunshine greeted Gauteng’s karters for the third round Northern Regional Rotax Max Challenge races at Vereeniging on Saturday, where some cracking racing entertained throughout the day. 

Cape racer Jason Coetzee has elected to race upcountry for his regionals this year and celebrated with a two heat to one DD2 overall victory over consistent Karabo Malemela. Race 1 winner Jamie Smith’s weekend went backwards from there as he ended up on the third step of the podium for the day ahead of Dusan Radojevic and Olerato Sekudu. An anomaly saw Carlo Gil sixth overall from Justin Rogers, a troubled Bjorn Roos and Grant Veenstra, but scored alone, Rogers did enough to beat Gil to the DD2 Masters win. 

Kent Swartz bounced back from second in the opening Senior Max heat to win heat 2 and 3 and take the day from race 1 winner Mauro Da Luz, Mikel Bezuidenhout, and Roshaan Goodman, with Brandon van der Walt, Liam Polome and Kian Spies in chase. Kegan Martin charged to a dominant triple high school Junior Max win as he left Luke Hill to fend Amani Kinyua off for second. Georgia Lenaerts meanwhile beat Reece Buts, Andre Froneman, Wian Mulder and Cristian Verheul to fourth.

Tshepang Shisinwana looked on course for the under-13 Mini Max win for the day off race 1 and 2 wins, but a tough final handed the laurels to heat 3 winner Durelle Goodman. Rafael De Sousa was best of the rest from Brodi Dowling, Kiyaan Reddi, Ruvan Maritz, Ronaldo Koen and Zac Hindley. Matthew Shuttleworth held Luke du Toit off for the under-11 Micro Max trophy with Luhan De Wet, Retlotleng Thekiso, Alessio Britz, Kireev Chetty Ronald Venter and Adriaan Steyn chasing.

Alonzo De Oliveira made no mistakes en route to a triple baby Bambino win from Sebastien Shuttleworth, Aston Verheul, Anabile Madikane Anash, Liam de Beer, Emre Froneman and Gabriel Wyatt Joseph. There’s a KZN round this coming weekend before a double header at Killarney in the Cape and Zwartkops Gauteng on 22 June, and then the Rotax Max National Final back at Formula K smack in the middle of winter on Saturday 6 July.