The old saying “hard work pays off” could not have rung any truer on Saturday when young Bay karter Aashay Nagura used his home-track advantage to finish on the top step of the podium in the ROK Karting Nationals held at Algoa Kart Club.
Racing in the highly competitive Mini Rok class against 16 of the best karting stars in the country, 12-year-old Nagura showed grit and determination to qualify in second place on the grid for race one.
From the moment the lights went out to start the race he got into the lead, which he held to the end of the 10-lap heat.
A start line infringement from Nagura saw him unfortunately pick up a five-second penalty which relegated him to second place for race one.
Having set the quickest lap time during the race meant that he would start in pole position for race two, where he stamped his authority over the rest of the field to romp home in first place, winning by a huge five seconds.
Race three was a closer affair, but Nagura kept it neat and tidy to take the win by almost two seconds with another lights-to-flag victory to complete a dominant performance, having led every single lap of all three heats, a feat that does not happen often in the Mini Rok class.
Fellow Algoa Kart Club member and leader in the national championship Sebastien Blignaut ended the day in third place overall.
For brothers Jack and Joshua Moore, racing in the OKJ class, it was a day of ups and downs with neither of them finishing race one and Joshua not finishing in race two, but in true never-give-up style Jack came back strong to win heats two and three and Joshua bagged second place in heat three.
Fellow Algoa karter Caleb Moss rounded out a good return to national racing, finishing in third place overall.
The MSR4 Invitational class saw 10 of the local kart club members going head to head in ideal racing conditions where Matthew Kleyhans dominated, winning all three of the 10-lap heats.
Overall class results:
Cadet: 1 Caleb Rogers, 2 Ebrahim Khalpey, 3 Harris Radhi
Kid ROK: 1 Riley van Staden, 2 Noah Cronje, 3 Logan Roehrig
Mini ROK: 1 Aashay Nagura, 2 Maddox Mason, 3 Sebastien Blignaut
OKN: 1 Muhammad Wally, 2 Wian Boshoff, 3 Mikel Bezuidenhout
OKJ: 1 Amani Kinyua, 2 Jack Moore, 3 Caleb Moss
MSR4: 1 Matthew Kleynhans, 2 Dorian Kleynhans, 3 Dayaan Padayache.
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