Lady racers make motorsport history

Lanz, riding a Formula K machine beat Cetinich on a Birel by two seconds, with Jackson (CRG) fending off gentlemen racers Tylan Witbooi and Jarryd Wray for third on what is believed the be a unique all-girl podium in motorsport history anywhere in the world. Only a spirited comeback drive by Wray would prevent the ladies from scoring an overall 1-2-3 on the day when he took third place for the day off Jackson by a solitary point, finishing behind Lanz, who took the honours from Cetinich.

Shannon Jackson, Ivana Cetinich and Fabienne Lanz. Image by Nick Cetinich

In other action on the day, Delon Thompson (Birel) opened up his high school Junior Max championship lead over the similarly mounted Blaine Rademeyer and Joshua Dias, who respectively ended second in third behind Thompson in all three races. Karl Pitzer, Wayland Wyman and Oliver Gunner filled the minor placings. Luca Munaretto (FA Kart) similarly dominated all three of the other high school Junior Rok class races to win comfortably overall from Jordan North (Kosmic) and Mike Pringle.

In the primary school classes, Kwanda Mokoena (FA) beat Cameron O Connor (Topkart) two races to one to take Maxterino honours with Saood Variawa third overall ahead of Liam de Beer, Joshua de Paiva and Jagger Robertson. Saood Variawa (Topkart) similarly took two races to one over Altan Bouw (Zanardi) to take the other primary school Mini Rok class overall honours with Blaine Rademeyer (Topkart) third from Jarrod Waberski, LJ Mginqi and Leyton Fourie.

Little Sa'aad Variawa meanwhile trotted off another three under-eight year old Cadet class wins to tighten his grip on that championship as Bjorn Bertholdt kept Aeron Wecke, Mohammed Moerat, WJ van Straaten and Chelsey Fulton behind for second.

Moving up to the gearbox classes, Justin Allison (TonyKart) maintained his recent national championship round winning advantage over his regional competitors to score three wins and overall Rotax DD2 honours for the day. Ronnie Baptista (CRG) took Masters class honours in second overall ahead of Chad Maciver, Pascal Aquaah, another leading karting Lady in Jennifer Verheul and Jonathan Mogotsi.

The six-speed IAME X30 class results had a familiar ring about them as Nathan Parkins (Kosmic) reeled off another three race wins to to take an easy overall victory over Connor Rogers (Zanardi) and Keagan Masters (FA). Shayur Harpal was fourth from Ryan Maroun and Justin Oates.

Last but not least, Scott Falconer dominated the old school 125 GP class over Deon Auby and Ryan Bakewell, with Gerald Fourie and Miguel and Paul Dias rounding off the top six.

But this race day will be remembered for Fabienne Lanz, Ivana Cetinich and Shannon Jackson's all-girl top 3 in that first Senior Max heat - an historic result and quite plausibly the first such outcome anywhere in world race history.

National karting competitors now pack for iDube and the fourth round of the SA championship in KwaZulu Natal on 15 August, before the regional circus returns to Vereeniging for round six of the Northern Regions series a week later