2007 Bloemfontein Junior Festival

First up was the Cadet class which saw no surprise with Liam Pienaar taking 3 consecutive victories on the day. He was followed by a persistent “Purple People Eater” in the form of Gaby dos Santos who completed 3 consecutive 2^nd place finishes. The “Last of the Mohicans” Daygin Prescott fought really hard to maintain a clean sweep 3^rd place in all the heats with Justin Wilde and new comer Stuart White breathing down his neck the whole day.

In the GP Junior brigade we saw a consistent 3 way battle between local ace Eddie Le Roux, Gauteng graduate Ayrton dos Santos and Victor John Velleman. The three swapped sticker kits for most of the day. Ayrton was just unable to take the win for the day in heat 3 when he suffered the loss of the 3 most important things in racing, and that being enough track to pull of an overtaking manoeuvre, enough breaks and most of all prevention of brain fade. This put him back to third with one lap to go. After regaining most of the 3 important components he was able to take back 2^nd place, giving him a win and two second place finishes for the weekend, which added up to a 2^nd overall. Travis Do Rego, Henco du Toit and sister & brother team Saskia & Michael Potgieter traded blows and positions the whole day eventually finishing 1 point adrift from each other from 4^th to 7^th place.

The 125 open class saw a few surprises, which proved to be an All Free State benefit. The expected winner for the day was formula ford driver Pieter Norval in his new Super ROK, but it was not to be, besides the coming together he had in heat three which parked him with a few critical parts missing on his kart, he was only able to achieve a 3^rd place in heats 1 and 2 behind eventual winner Justin Alison (Max Challenge) and Megan Boshoff (Junior Max), because of the DNF in heat 3 for Pieter Norval, motocross ace Meiring Vermeulen  (Junior Max) finished an eventual 3^rd overall with Norval (Super ROK) 4^th , Adrian Wood (Junior ROK) 5^th and JC Du Plessis (Junior ROK) filling the top 6. We believe Megan would have achieved an even higher finish if she had not run up front in to two classes on the day, thus giving her fellow competitors the advantage of fresher legs.

Although the Junior Festival only attracts competitors under 18 years of age, the 125 GP guys received an invitational race. This class was dominated by the KZN drivers with the luck Dennis van der Berg had on the weekend, I would recommend that no one use him to buy a lotto ticket. He eventually bagged the “Most DNF’s” trophy for the day. The eventual front runner on the day was Adrian Baleta with a clean sweep of victories followed by Hylton Augustus and Glen Waters 3^rd overall. Craig Askew showed promise most of the day but his habitual jumpstarts caught the wrath of the CoC, which sent him tumbling down the finishing order heat after heat.

Overall, BKC put on a fantastic event with no less than 15 sponsors supplying prizes which has surely set the standard for 2007, followed by a party until the wee hours of the morning.