It's North and South Island championship time again for the country's top KartSport competitors with events in Wellington and Invercargill over Labour Weekend. Both meetings have attracted bumper entries, with over 120 karters heading to KartSport Wellington's Lascom Raceway at Kaitoke for the North Island event and over 70 set to compete at the Invercargill Kart Club's Macaulay Ford Kart Raceway at Invercargill's Sandy Point Domain.
Ten class titles will be contested at the North Island meeting, nine at the South Island one. Each meeting will run over three full days with Qualifying Time Trials on Friday and heats, Pre-Finals and Finals on Saturday and Sunday.
NORTH ISLAND
Each meeting has attracted a number of defending Island and/or reigning New Zealand champions, and in the case of the North Island meeting several top South Island drivers keen for a chance to benchmark themselves against the North Island's best.
In Formula 100, the elite Senior 100cc class in this country, it is hard to go past experienced local drivers Karl Wilson, Phillip Watkins, Bevan Hare and Simon McLennan, however also expected to feature are young guns Bradley Tyrrell from Tokoroa and Tyler Richardson from Morrinsville.
Wilson, Watkins, McLennan and Tyrrell will also no doubt feature in the Senior 100cc Yamaha Light class, though the arrival from the Junior ranks of Auckland's Matthew Kinsman (the 2006 North Island and reigning New Zealand 100cc Junior Yamaha class champion) puts a hungry young cat well and truly amongst the established class pigeons.
The Yamaha 100cc-based classes are the best supported at this year's North Island championships with 21 entries in both the Light (minimum all-up weight of kart and driver 143kg) and Heavy (160kg) Senior classes, and 19 in the Junior one.
Christchurch's Simon Hunter heads the line up in the Yamaha Heavy class, the reigning NZ #1 having again been the pick of the Heavy class drivers at the big Blossom meeting in the Hawke's Bay at the beginning of September.
Competition for him is expected to come from 2006 North Island champion Stuart Marshall, fellow Aucklanders Aarron Cunningham and Dion Kendall, and top local drivers William Thomason and Hayden Sarcich.
In the Rotax Max 125cc classes its hard to go past defending North Island champion and 2007 Rotax Max Challenge winner Paul Cameron in the Light category (minimum all-up weight 160kg) though he will still have to beat 2006 New Zealand Rotax Max Challenge winner Josh Hart from Palmerston North and fast-rising young Aucklanders Richard Oxton, Jake Pascoe and Kane Taylor, as well as former pro-motocrosser Niki Urwin from Tauranga.
Rotax Max 125cc Heavy (minimum all-up weight 185kg) is harder to pick, with defending North Island champion Aarron Cunningham facing competition from South Island #1 Adam Boote, young Hawke's Bay driver Zach Zaloum, and top local driver Nick Rogers.
With many of the younger competitors moving up a class between the National Sprint Championship meeting at Easter and the Island ones at Labour Weekend there has been something of a changing of the guard in some of the Junior classes.
In Formula Junior reigning NZ#1 Tim Vickers from Auckland leads a star-studded lineup which includes Junior 100cc Restricted graduates Arie Hutton and Nick Cassidy, both two-time New Zealand champions in the Cadet and Junior Restricted classes.
Wanganui's William Bamber and Wellington's Jamie McNee are also in with a chance. As they are in Junior 100cc Yamaha where they will also come up against Vickers, Hutton and Cassidy as well as another highly rated local driver, James Hadley, and 2006 North Island Junior Restricted champion Levi Madsen-Prinn from Auckland.
On recent form 2007 New Zealand Schools champion Jamie Gaskin from Wellington deserves some of the limelight in the Junior 100cc Yamaha Restricted class, however Nelson's Darrell Hannah is another South Island champion who has decided to head north this weekend, and with New Zealand Cadet champions Ben Drummond (2006) and Aaron Wilson (2007) also in the field Gaskin has no shortage of quality competition.
The story is the same in the Cadet class with New Zealand Schools' champion Maddison Wise from the Hawke's Bay set to come up against Auckland Schools' championship Cadet class winner Kaitlyn Wonnacott and fellow Aucklander Joel Herbert, as well as New Zealand Schools #2 Josh Drysdale from the Manawatu.
SOUTH ISLAND
Meanwhile heading the Senior entry list at The Rock FM South Island Sprint Kart Championship meeting is reigning New Zealand 125cc Rotax Max Light champion Matthew Hamilton and fellow kart-and-car star Andy Knight, both from Christchurch.
Hamilton, back in karts after a foray into cars which saw him win races in the Toyota Racing Series here and compete in the Indy Pro Series in the United States, will contest two class titles, 125cc Rotax Max Light and Open.
Knight will also complete a double shift at Invercargill, competing in the Senior 100cc Light class and joining Hamilton in Open.
Competition for Hamilton in 125cc Rotax Max Light looks likely to come from fellow Christchurch drivers Glenn Hartley, Jeremy Burgess and Matthew Penrose, the latter the winner of two New Zealand Junior titles at the 2006 National Sprint championships, Formula Junior and Junior 100cc Yamaha.
Meanwhile competition for Knight in Senior 100cc Yamaha Light looks set to come from defending champion Rachel Thompson from Mosgiel, Jamie Conroy from Invercargill and Josh Burgess from Christchurch.
In the absence of defending champion Regan Carter from Invercargill and reigning New Zealand champion, Dunedin's Vickie Saunders, the Open class looks like being a Hamilton/Knight benefit, though Cody McMaster from the West Coast could spring a surprise.
With 2006 South Island champion Adam Boote competing at the North Island title meeting this year Christchurch drivers Mark Coulbeck and Murray Press are expected to step up to the plate in the 125cc Rotax Max Heavy class, though Dunedin's Paul Booth and Invercargill's Stephen Keast should not be discounted.
Coulbeck and Booth are also expected be the drivers to beat in the Senior 100cc Yamaha Heavy class.
In the Junior classes defending South Island Formula Junior champion Chris Cox from Christchurch is definite favourite in both Formula Junior and Junior 100cc Yamaha with competition likely to come from local lad Damon Leitch, Mosgiel's Steven Thompson, Nelson's Kane Adcock and Christchurch's Luke Kirk.
James Penrose meanwhile would be a good bet in Junior 100cc Yamaha Restricted, the youngster from North Canterbury having recently beaten the cream of the North Island competition at the 40th anniversary Blossom meeting in the Hawke's Bay. That said, he will still have to take on and beat Scott Manson and Grayson Napier from Nelson, 2006 South Island Cadet class champion Brook Reeve from Blenheim, Cassidy Mowat from Dunedin and local boy Brendon Leitch.
And in Cadet?
With defending South Island champion Brook Reeve now competing in Junior 100cc Restricted Yamaha the way is open for Christchurch's Jordon McDonnell to aim for the top step of the podium. To do so however he will have to beat fellow Christchurch Kart Club members Olivia and Ryan Yardley, and Brent Neill.
There will be activity on the track at both venues from 9.00am on Friday, Saturday and Sunday with each class will getting two Time Trials, two heats, a pre-Final and a Final. At the North Island meeting Cadet, Junior 100cc Yamaha, 100cc Yamaha Light, 100cc Yamaha Heavy and 125cc Rotax Max Light will be contested on Saturday, Junior Restricted 100cc Yamaha, Formula Junior, Open, Formula 100 and 125cc Rotax Max Heavy on Sunday.
At the South Island meeting Cadet, Junior 100cc Yamaha, 100cc Yamaha Light, 100cc Yamaha Heavy and 125cc Rotax Max Light will be contested on Saturday, Junior Restricted 100cc Yamaha, Formula Junior, Open and 125cc Rotax Max Heavy on Sunday.
KartSport is a safe, affordable motorsport which caters for all ages, with categories for Cadets (6-12yrs), Junior Restricted (10-14 yrs), Juniors (12-17 yrs) and Seniors (15 yrs and over). To find out more about it go to www.kartsport.org.nz
