THE THIRD ROUND of the KartingEdge Challenge Series on the 19th of April at Permas Go-Kart Club Circuit was an impressive success. This 3rd milestone event was participated by 30 karters, a total of 66 individual participants since the first event back in November 2007. A sure sign that the awareness of the club and the sports in Singapore is on the rise.

The main core members present on that day was Fuji Sartono, Norman Ng, Lawrence Ng, Eric Ho, and Weiyong Chua. Together they hosted the 30 karters from Singapore & Malaysia into two separate Classes: Class-1 and Class-2. This is the first time the organizers split their events in order to equalize the playing field amongst the experienced karters from the newer ones. Ahmad Rizal, who is the currently at the top of the leaderboard, quoted, “the idea to separate the new karters & (the) regular(s) was a good idea”. He added that drawing lots to select the karts for every session was a fairer system, referring to the fact that kart selection was randomized for the practice, qualifying, and the race. This idea was first suggested by Guy Ermer during the pre-event briefing.

In Class 1, Fuji and Charles were both racing neck to neck throughout the entire race. “That was the most exciting kart race I’ve ever had”, stated Fuji, who finished in 4th position just behind the fast Charles Teo in 3rd position. Even though Charles gave enough racing room for Fuji to give a fair fight, Fuji was simply unable to capitalize on his fast speed, who clocked the fastest lap of the race at 1:25.02.

Several positions behind, Norman Ng also had a tenacioius fight for 4 laps behind “the ever consistent Haiquan”, quoted Norman, “and I finally made an opportunistic overtaking move at he 2nd hairpin”.  Norman made an impressive mountainous climb up the ladder by 7 positions from his 14th qualifying spot. This is his first clean race, citing that he had no spins or incidents during the race.

Class 1 saw new winner Shawn See, who clocked the fastest qualifying time ever in this KartingEdge series at 1:22.98. He started first and finished first as well. Topping of the podium was Ahmad Rizal at 2nd place and Charles Teo at 3rd place.

Karters from Class 2 were a mix of new karters as well as participants from the previous rounds. Muhammad Yazid who is making his 2nd debut in this series, was close to winning his first race when he collided with Nelson Yap at the fast left-hander Turn 1 that resulted in Nelson’s retirement. Nevertheless, Yazid finished 2nd making him the highest podium finisher as a rookie. Another rookie who equally made an impressive debut was Mulya Amri who finished 4th in just his first karting experience and race.

Topping of the podium winners in Class 2 were Daniel Chen, who qualified 2nd and finished 1st, and Peter Oxlade who qualified 7th and finished 3rd.

Read live comments from the karters at the KartingEdge forum here.

Overall, this third round has been fantastic success and the organizers are preparing for the next event scheduled for May. Expect a new type of race event. Don’t forget to vist the KartingEdge forum to get first hand news on what this next event is and when it will be held.

Summary^:

Class 1:

1st place - Shawn See

2nd place - Ahmad Rizal

3rd place - Charles Teo

Class 2:

1st place - Daniel Chen

2nd place - Muhammad Yazid

3rd place - Peter Oxlade

^Due to the introduction of the Class system, podium winners are now determined by the physical finishes of the top 3 winners. However, points are awarded based on the consolidation of all the driver’s total time from Class 1 and 2.

View the full qualifying and race results.

View the photo gallery.

Also Read:

Round-1 Race Review

Round-2 Race Review

Check out other EVENTS at this link.