This last weekend saw the first round of the AAM Malaysian Karting Championship at Speedway PLUS Circuit in Subang.
Local team, Stratos Motorsports, fielded three young drivers – Malaysian Daniel Woodroof in the Junior Category, Singapore-based Rory Elliott in the Cadets along with Malaysian Natania Tai also in Cadets.
The Saturday (May 21) was a full day of testing for all karters. The Sunday schedule included qualifying, two heats, a pre-final and then the final for all categories. The weather was hot and dry for both days with the rain only coming after the finals had been completed on Sunday – just in time for packing up!
In qualifying on Sunday morning, Daniel was 2nd in the Juniors, Natania and Rory 3rd and 5th respectively in the Cadets.
In the Junior heats and pre-final, Daniel came 2nd in the first run, 1st in the second and 2nd in the pre-final, putting him second on the grid in the all important final. In the final, Daniel drove a masterful race to finish first and take the top step of the podium.
Both Rory & Natania are quite new to competitive karting but they both did well against the more experienced drivers in the Cadet category. Rory did suffer from an engine problem in the early races which proved hard to diagnose but the issue was resolved in time for the final. Natania’s best result of the day was a third in the second heat. In the final Natania and Rory battled for positions throughout the race with Rory just beating Natania to take the chequered flag in 3rd place, and a podium position.
All in all a good weekend for the Stratos Motorsports team.
Stratos Motorsports is now busy packing and shipping karts and equipment to Kuching for the third round of the Rotax Max Challenge to be held June 18/19. This will be a new circuit for all competitors and the team is really excited to be travelling to East Malaysia for this event. We will be running five karts – Daniel Woodroof and Daniel Rao from Malaysia and Guy Ermer, Rory Elliott and Harry Scott from Singapore’s Blackdog Racing Team.