Summarize

Spring traditionally comes a little later to the Cape, but that did not prevent a perfect day for racing and the sixth round of the Western Cape Rotax Max Challenge Karting championship at Killarney on Saturday. Encouraging grids of karts across the classes made for entertaining races in a fair mix between close racing and domination.

Joseph Oelz bounced back from a lacklustre opening heat with wins in the second and third races to take premier gearbox class Rotax DD2 honours on a count-back after he tied with race 1 winner Jason Coetzee on the day. Matthew Wadeley beat Ethan Stier and Rafe Tayler to fourth. The ever-improving Jared Jordan was untroubled in DD2 Masters as he took a triple win and the day from Conor Hughes, Neville Chapman, Michael Jordan, Niel Lambrechts and Andrew Thomas.

Senior and Junior Max raced together. Charl Michael Visser returned to winning ways ahead of his appointment at next month’s Rotax ‘Olympics of Karting’ Grand Finals in Italy with a triple Rotax Senior Max win over  Luca Wehrli, Storm Lanfear, Ethan Deacon, Gabriele Gazzilli, Mikaeel Moola and Jude Stuart. Sebastiano Human also went unbeaten in high school Rotax Junior Max. He beat Keagan Beaumont, Jordon Wadeley, Nicholas Lennox, Anwill April, Matthew Carter and Aiden Beaumont.

Opening race winner Max Boshoff benefited second and third heat victor Zac Hindley going out of the first race to take the Rotax under-13 Mini Max win from Hindley, Kiyaan Reddi, Michael Danks, Zach McAuley, Zac Boshoff, Lwashu Mathebula and Ruan Lewis. Liam Wharton was another driver to go unbeaten in under-11 Micro Max, where Ruhan Victor ended second for the day from Jayden van der Merwe, Slater Smith, Michael O'Mahoney, Yaqeen Gamieldien, Qaanit Doutie and Mia Hermanus.

Caleb Lingeveldt, newcomer Divaaj Govender and newly crowned Global Bambino champion Radhi Harris shared out the baby Bambino wins in an epic day at the races.  Harris however stopped in the final heat to hand third on the day to Lehan Fourie, with Aleena Doutie, Emelee Adriaans and Ashlyn Beaumont in chase.

The Cape Rotax Max karters return to action for their penultimate round 7 on Saturday 5 October, a week before their Gauteng rivals do the same at Formula K. Then it’s time for the South African team to gear off and head to Naples, Italy to fly the flag in those 23-26 October 2024 Rotax Max Grand Finals.