Bumper Kiwi Squad Set for Rok Cup Superfinal in Italy

Bumper Kiwi Squad Set for Rok Cup Superfinal in Italy in October

New Zealand looks set to send one of its biggest squads to date to this year’s ROK Cup Superfinal event in Italy in October after an all-action final round of the local ROK Cup New Zealand series in Wellington on Saturday July 13.

At least eight young Kiwi karters are expected to travel to Italy for the October 09-12 meeting at the South Garda Karting track at Lonato in northern Italy, with two having confirmed their spots at the ROK Cup NZ Final held in conjunction with this year’s KartSport NZ Freeway Engineering National Schools’ Championships meeting at host club KartSport Wellington’s George Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Raceway at Kaitoke in Upper Hutt last weekend.

Arie Hutton from Palmerston North, Rianna O’Meara-Hunt from Wellington and Josh Richmond from Auckland had already confirmed the spots at the Superfinal they earned at the 2019 CIK Trophy of New Zealand meeting at Hamilton in January.

NZ Vortex Mini ROK #1 Louis Sharp from Christchurch had also confirmed his intention to travel to the meeting after earning his trip at the National Sprint Championship meeting at the same track over the Easter weekend.

Though the final round proved something of a nightmare for Sharp, who ended up back in an uncharacteristic 11th place overall after various issues through the heats, he had enough of a points buffer to take the overall series’ win in the Vortex Mini ROK class.

With a spot at the Superfinal meeting already his, the one he also earned at the final round for winning the series’ title then passed to the runner-up in the series’ class points standings, Tom Bewley from Havelock North.

Vortex ROK DVS Junior class winner at Wellington, Liam Sceats from Auckland, looks set to take the other place on the New Zealand squad at the 2019 Superfinal..

Supplementing these six will be two wild cards in the Vortex ROK DVS Junior class, Nathan Crang from Auckland, and Jacob Douglas from Christchurch.

Douglas has contested the past two ROK Cup international events in Italy and last year was the best performed of a four-strong Kiwi contingent, qualifying 4th quickest in the Vortex Mini ROK class and going on to win a heat race and cross the finish line in the ‘A’ Final in 10th place before a penalty for a dislodged nosecone saw him classified 15th.

Tom Bewley also earned a spot on the NZ squad last year but did not make the Vortex Mini ROK Final.

The other big winner at the final round of the ROK Cup NZ Series in Wellington on Saturday, meanwhile, was Blenheim’s Arthur Broughan,

With three wins from five starts in the heats the reigning South Island champion managed to wrest the lead in the Cadet ROK class points standings off reigning NZ#1 Mitchell Corin from Tauranga to claim the 2019 series’ title – and the prize of a brand new Vortex engine that went with it.

ROK Cup New Zealand is a multi-round series for drivers contesting classes which use Italian-made Vortex engines; Cadet ROK (for 6-10 year-olds), Vortex Mini ROK (for those 9-12 yrs) and Vortex ROK DVS Junior (for 12-15 year-olds) and Senior.

This year the 17th annual ROK Cup Superfinal will see more than 400 drivers representing ROK Cup series from around the world converge on the South Garda Karting complex at Lonato between October 09 & 12 to contest Vortex ROK titles across seven different categories.

Ends

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