2009 Island Karting Club Rotax Max champion Adrian Cauchi is striving to maintain his lead in this weekend’s race meeting at Hal Far. The fifth round of the IKC Karting Championship is being spread over two days – Saturday and Sunday.

On Saturday morning, it will be the turn of the Formula Super KF category. In this popular class we find nine drivers using a range of different kart chassis with different KF1 engines. This is the class in which Jacques Mizzi races against Natalino Farrugia, Clayton Mizzi, Luke, Paul, and Trevor Muscat, Larry Vella, Joseph Zaffarese and Joseph Zammit. Jacques Mizzi is currently challenging Trevor Muscat, the leader in this class, for top honours.

The other categories will race on Sunday, namely the Rotax Junior, the Rotax Max and the Formula 30. In the Rotax Junior class – as its name implies – all the racing karts will be using the Rotax Junior engine. But the chassis that are used by Ayrton Cauchi, Jamie Mangion, Kurt Mifsud, Lucas Pace, Joseph Saliba and Chris Sharpe are different.

Young Lucas Pace, last year’s champion in this category is leading again this season. Lucas had the opportunity to get his first international Rotax Grand Finals experience at the Ghibli Raceway in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, last December. The Corinthia Beach Resort featured as the VIP hotel dedicated to the distributors on the official documentation of the Rotax Challenge on that occasion!

The Rotax Max class will no doubt be the main event of Sunday with the majority of drivers doing their best to either consolidate their position or move ahead in the case of those who are behind. All drivers will of course be using Rotax Max engines, but they will be using different chassis. Etienne Azzopardi, Adrian Cauchi, Steve Johnson, Clayton Laus, Bertrand Micallef, Joseph Mifsud, Albert Vella and James Zammit will be challenging each other in this category.

Malta’s promising racing drivers of the future are likely to emerge from this class and the Formula SKF to join those who are doing so well in local and foreign events. It is a pity that Adrian Cauchi has just missed the first round of the Rotax Max Challenge Sicilia for lack of sponsorship. It would be interesting to find out how our current drivers compare with the Italian drivers in this category.

In addition to the main classes of racing, the Island Karting Club also provides an opportunity for senior drivers and the very little ones to have some fun. The Formula 30 is restricted to drivers over 30 years of age. Different types of karts and engines are used, so allowances are made to try and render the competition on a level playing field. David Abela, Billy Grech, Emmanuel Muscat, Trevor Sharpe and Larry Vella will be in action in this category.

In the case of the very little ones, the IKC promotes the Baby Class. The competitive element of this activity is removed to avoid any pressure at such a tender age of the participants – not to mention the tension of their parents. Here 50 to 60 cc engined baby/mini karts are used, and some more participants are expected to join Aleishia Cauchi, Salvatore Fisichella and Ian Vella.

The teams and technical people behind these efforts are not unrewarded as the IKC has instituted the Constructors Title. So 6 teams that spend so much time, effort and expenses on this sport and the drivers’ equipment, compete in their own category for the Constructors Trophy.

To add a little more excitement from one round of the championship to another, the Island Karting Club changes the direction in which races are run every now and then. So sometimes drivers race around the track in a clockwise direction and sometimes they race anti-clockwise. On Saturday and Sunday it will be the turn of anti-clockwise Track C. The different track configurations may be viewed among the documents on the IKC website http://www.ikc-malta.com/documents.html

Motor sports followers are going to be spoilt this weekend because they have to choose among IKC’s karting at Hal Far, ASM’s autocross at Ta’ Qali, and the ICC hillclimb at Gnejna. It is hoped that in the future, the clubs and associations will co-ordinate their calendars a little better to avoid overlapping as much as possible. But it is better to have duplication than a lack of permits as used to happen in the past.

The Island Karting Club, of which Adrian Cauchi also happens to be the president, is grateful to the authorities for providing it with a new location in Hal Far where kart racing meetings at international level might be convened in the not-too-distant future.

Foreign competitors could be invited to Malta once the new track is completed and fully functional. It is hoped that a few entrepreneurs will see the potential of such a circuit and join IKC to complete the new track as soon as possible.