Early rain made for an extra challenge, some surprise results and a spectacle that did not abate even though it later cleared into a perfect late summer’s Cape day, but Saturday’s second round of the 2016 Western Cape Karting Championship certainly delivered on its promise of brilliant racing.

Racing was however delayed until after the entire Cape karting community drove a lap of honour in salute of legendary veteran Killarney commentator Brian Peek who passed away recently – Brian’s familiar thrilling and unique commentary was sorely missed at the track for the first time for many of a year.

The racing however went on and it could not have been closer with little Reza Levy Jive surprising to put his Jive machine on pole position for the under-eight year old Cadet 50cc races before dicing wheel to wheel with Joaquin de Oliveira’s Spongebob machine only for Levy to miss out on his first victory to de Oliveira by a tenth of a second. De Oliveira got away to win race 2 from the battling Paul Maclolm, Mischka Williams, Levy, Ethan Deacon, Reese Koorzen, Joshua Smit and Ethan Stier.

Levy was back in front in the last race only to lose that elusive first win by a hundredth of a second to triple winner de Oliveira, who worked very hard to win the day from Levy, Malcolm, Koorzen, Smit and Williams and close the the championship down to a tight three-way tussle between de Oliveira, Levy and Malcolm.

Moving up a class to a healthy grid of 18 dicing Maxterino 60cc primary school kids, the first race was all about Joseph Oelz (Zanardi) and Charl Visser (Battery Energy Zanardi) who were split by just three hundredths of a second at the flag before Visser returned the favour to beat Tate Bishop (Kosmic) who joined the party and Oelz in race 2. Oelz then won race 3 from Visser and Bishop and take the day by a point from Visser with Bishop third from Troy Dolinschek (Makita Kosmic), Kai Van Zijl (CRG) and Jason MacBeath (Kosmic).

Jason Coetzee (RKT Kosmic) had to work very hard for his trio of high school Rotax Junior Max 125cc wins, fighting back to fend off an on form wet pole man Daniel Duminy (Kosmic), Sebastian Boyd (Boyd Freight Kosmic) and the impressive Andrew Rackstraw (Tony) in race 1 before dicing all the way with Duminy to beat him by 0.3 seconds in race 2 with Rackstraw third from Boyd. Race 3 was an easier win for Coetzee ahead of another impressive youngster Sam Lochoff (Kosmic), Boyd and Rackstraw after Duminy went missing early on to see Coetzee to the overall win from Boyd, Lochoff, Rackstraw, Duminy and Jozi visitor Luca Munaretto (FA Kart).

Delano Fowler (Suprocom Tony) may not have won a heat en route to overall open class Rotax Senior Max 125s honours, but three-second places on the day did the trick. Regular pace man Dino Stermin (Designer Trims RKT Kosmic) took an early shower to see Umpie Swart through to race 1 victory before Stermin struck back to take races 2 and 3, but Fowler still won the day from Stermin, Arnold du Toit and Chadley Swartz after Swart failed to start the final.

Reigning WP champion Jonathan Aberdein (TonyKart) was another driver made to work for his overall win in the quickest Rotax DD2 gearbox class bristling with the Cape’s top kart talent this year. Aberdein came out on top of a furious 5-way wrought with Umpie Swart (Birel), Julian van der Watt (FA Kart) and Jonathan Thomas (Partners CRG) and all of them within half a second at the race 1 flag after early leader Luke Herring (RKT Kosmic) ran into trouble.

It was just as close in race 2 when Aberdein passed van der Watt on the last lap to win with Swart and Thomas again right there; but Herring finally got his act together to beat van der Watt by a tenth of a second in the final with Swart third from Aberdein and Thomas. Aberdein did enough to take the day from van der Watt, Swart, Herring, Thomas and Tristan de Nobrega (Race Driver CRG).

Fast lady racer Isabelle Fowler (Suprocom TonyKart) continued on her dominant way with a trio of Cape Clubmans wins, beating Marco Viegas and Lamahl Padayachee in race 1, Andrew Thomas and Jody van Rensburg in race 2 and Kian van der Merwe and Thomas in race 3.

The Western Cape kart championship now takes a break until round 3 on 14 May, but Killarney plays host to the first round of the 2016 South African Karting Championship on the weekend of 1-2 April – now there’s a meeting not to be missed!