Lonato, Italy - The South African team brought home a considerable collection of silverware from the Vortex Rok world karting finals at the South Garda Karting circuit in Lonato at the weekend, with a fine second overall and top 10 results in every class they entered.
Current SA Junior Rok champion Stuart White from Bloemfontein missed out on the high school Junior Rok world title by seven hundredths of a second in a dramatic final that saw the top three crashing over the line. White started from third on the grid but was pushed down to fifth before fighting back to second behind Italian Francesco Pagano.
At the beginning of the final lap another Italian, Danny Carenini, passed White and challenged the leader, allowing White to close in as the leading trio approached the final hairpin. An immoderate amount of contact in the hairpin saw all three cross the line more or less sideways, but the stewards adjudged Carenini the winner, with White second and Pagano, who'd led almost the entire race, third.
Capetonian Jason Coetzee was also 33 drivers qualified for the final but an early incident saw him drop to the back of the pack before recovering to finish 27th.
X30 SHIFTERS
South African X30 Shifter champion Nathan Parkins from Pretoria had problems in the second Shifter Rok pre-final and finished way down the order. He started the last pre-final 34th but clawed his way through the lower half of the field to finish 15th and qualify for the final, where he put in a superb drive to finish fifth while local hero Giacomo Pollini romped away to an emphatic win,
The second South African Shifter Rok finalist, Keagan Masters, qualified well in 10th but a second-lap altercation saw him tumbling to the tail of the field before fighting back to 23rd.
MAX CHALLENGE
Cape Town's 2015 SA Max Challenge champion Jonathan Aberdein qualified third for the open class Rok 125cc final, only to find that he'd been allocated a recalcitrant kart. He drove masterfully to keep the field at bay for most of the race, eventually dropping to sixth at the end, while Szymon Szyszko pulled away to grab the glory.
MINI ROK
Saood Variyawa and Jayden Els were among the 33 young karters who qualified for the primary school Mini Rok championship final. Variyawa started from 12th, Els from 15th but, after briefly mixing it with Els Variyawa gradually pulled away to finish 9th, while local driver Mattia Michelotto came up from 8th on the grid to take the race on the final lap.
Dear IOL reader, we're closing comments
* E-mail your opinion to [email protected] and we will consider it for publication or use our Facebook and Twitter pages to comment on our stories. See links below.