Mathew Kinsman's Successful Double Title Defence
| press release | 5 April 2015 |
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Top New Zealand karter Mathew Kinsman had KartSport officials scanning the record books at this year's CB Norwood Distributors Ltd-backed KartSport New Zealand National Sprint championship meeting in Palmerston North over the Easter weekend.
Kinsman won both the 125cc Rotax Max Light and 100cc Yamaha Light titles at the 2014 National Sprint Championship meeting in Blenheim last year. And by successfully defending both titles at Palmerston North this year it was thought he had created a new record.
Above: Top Auckland karter Mathew Kinsman (#1) successfully defended both his 125cc Rotax Max Light (above) and 100cc Yamaha Light National Sprint titles at this year's CB Norwood Distributors Ltd 2015 KartSport New Zealand National Sprint Championship meeting in Palmerston North
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Fast Company/Vicky Jack
Several drivers have successfully defended single class titles, including expat Christchurch driver Simon Hunter, a six-time champion in the 100cc Yamaha Heavy and two-time champion in the 125cc Rotax Max Heavy classes, in recent years.
But you have to go back to the early 1980s before you find a double-title precedent, multi-time New Zealand champion John Hamilton managing the feat in both 1983 and 1984.
Kinsman appears the only karter who has done it since, however, the Auckland driver - also a winner in the annual multi-round Rotax Max Challenge series - the dominant figure in both classes at Palmerston North, claiming New Zealand title number four in the 125cc Rotax Max Light class on Saturday, and title number five in the 100cc Yamaha Light class on Sunday.
On Saturday he qualified quickest and won the first Rotax Light heat and finished second in the second then the Pre-Final (the latter behind younger brother Daniel) before winning the Final - and with it the 2015 New Zealand title - from heat two winner Jordan Boys from Australia, younger brother Daniel and the pair's long-term Rotax Max Challenge rival Daniel Connor from Auckland.
Then on Sunday he was the class of the 100cc Yamaha Light field, working his way forward - after qualifying fifth - in the heats before winning the Pre-Final then the Final very much as he liked, the latter from Jordan Boys and former class champion Alex Geary from New Plymouth.
Another driver to make a class-winning mark over the weekend was Aucklander Ryan Urban, who added an eighth New Zealand Sprint Nationals title to his CV in an unbroken career which now spans over 20 years and more than six classes.
Urban, now 32, won his first NZ Sprint title in the Midget class in 1993 and his second in the 250cc National class ten years later.
Since then he has added NZ Sprint titles in the Open, KZ2, Rotax Max Light and Heavy and now 100cc Yamaha Heavy classes.
It could easily have been two titles too, Urban also qualifying quickest for the 125cc Rotax Max Heavy class on Sunday and starting the Final alongside eventual title winner Lane Moore on the front row of the grid.
He was pushed wide off the start in both the Pre-Final and Final, though, and while able to work his way back from seventh to second in both races, a rampant Lane crossed the line ahead in both to claim his second New Zealand title in five years.
Above: Aucklander Ryan Urban (#90) in 100cc Yamaha Heavy
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Fast Company/Vicky Jack
Saturday's KZ2 class title winner Daniel Bray also had a title double chance after a successful Saturday only to seize an engine while leading the Open class Final on Sunday, that title going to Daniel Connor after one of the other front-runners, Mark Elder, was forced out when an exhaust pipe (one of two on his twin-engined kart) broke loose.
Local honour, meanwhile, was upheld by Juniors Dylan Drysdale and Jacob Cranston,
The pair were two of a number of talented young Manawatu drivers expected to do well at the annual national championship meeting and they didn’t disappoint.
On his way to winning the Junior 100cc Yamaha title on Saturday 15-year-old Drysdale qualified quickest and won both heats and the Pre-Final, before leading the Final from start to finish.
Second was Christchurch driver Ayden Polaschek, third Drysdale's 14-year-old clubmate Jacob Cranston.
The title was Drysdale's first New Zealand Sprint championship one, and comes just nine months after he won the Formula Junior title at the 2014 New Zealand Schools' championship meeting.
Drysdale was also in with a chance of a Junior class title double after also qualifying quickest for the Rotax Max Junior class, raced on Sunday. That title went to Cranston, who qualified second, however, after Drysdale was forced out of the class Pre-Final when his kart's left-hand sidepod fell off.
That meant he had to start the Final from the back row of the grid, leaving Cranston to win it - giving him his second New Zealand Sprint title - unchallenged, from Christchurch's Ryan Yardley and Auckland's Liam Lawson. Drysdale did his best but could only make it back up to seventh place before the chequered flag came out.
Above: Dylan Drysdale (#69), in Junior 100cc Yamaha
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Fast Company/Vicky Jack
In the other Junior classes reigning North Island class champion Joshua Parkinson won the Vortex Mini ROK Final on Saturday from Auckland driver Billy Frazer and local ace Tom Greig - and with it the opportunity to travel to Italy later in the year to contest the annual ROK International Cup Finals.
There was an upset, meanwhile, in Cadet ROK, when young Clay Osborne won a cliff-hanger Final on Sunday from Asten Addy and fastest qualifier and heats and Pre-Final winner Blake Austin.
Austin led the most laps of anyone in the class over the weekend but on the last one Osborne - who had spent the rest of the race tucked in behind leader Austin - made a daring, and successful, pass for the lead with just two corners to go.
Asten Addy followed through for second, relegating Austin to third.
Organising club KartSport Manawatu received over 170 entries from karters from New Zealand plus two from Australia for this year's CB Norwood Distributors Ltd-backed KartSport New Zealand National Sprint Championship meeting.
2015 New Zealand National Sprint Championships
Saturday
100cc Yamaha Heavy
1. Ryan Urban; 2. Lane Moore; 3. Simon Hunter; 4. Zac Zaloum; 5. Ryan Bailey; 6. Sam Carpenter
125cc Rotax Max Light
1. Matthew Kinsman; 2. Jordan Boys; 3. Daniel Kinsman; 4. Daniel Connor; 5. Rhys Tinney; 6. Andy Schofield
KZ2
1. Daniel Bray; 2. Matthew Hamilton; 3. Graeme Smyth; 4. Christopher Cox; 5. Brad Tremain; 6. Roland Davies
Junior 100cc Yamaha
1. Dylan Drysdale; 2. Ayden Polashek; 3. Jacob Cranston; 4. Kaleb Ngatoa; 5. Maddy Stewart; 6. Suvarn Naidoo
Vortex Mini ROK
1. Joshua Parkinson; 2. Billy Frazer; 3. Tom Greig; 4. Callum Hedge; 5. Thomas Boniface; 6. Samuel Wright
Sunday
Rotax Heavy
1. Lane Moore; 2. Ryan Urban; 3. Zac Zaloum; 4. Keith Wilkinson; 5. Brendon Hart; 6. Simon Hunter
100cc Yamaha Light
1. Mathew Kinsman; 2. Jordan Boys, 3. Alex Geary; 4. Andy Schofield; 5. Brad Still; 6. Maddie Wise.
Open
1. Daniel Connor; 2. Chris Cox; 3. Daniel Rine; 4. Arie Hutton; 5. Rollo Davies; 6. Richard Moore
Junior 100cc Yamaha
1. Jacob Cranston; 2. Ryan Yardley; 3. Liam Lawson; 4. Kaleb Ngatoa; 5. Maddy Stewart; 6. Matthew Payne.
Cadet ROK
1. Clay Osborne; 2. Asten Addy; 3. Blake Austin; 4. Louis Sharp; 5. Dylan Grant; 6. Logan Manson;
