True to his word, top Auckland karter Daniel Kinsman spearheaded a strong Kiwi showing at the final round of the 2013/14 Australian Rotax Max (kart) Challenge Pro Tour at Coffs Harbour in central New South Wales over the weekend.

Heading into the meeting Kinsman said he was confident of a good result and that’s exactly what he delivered, qualifying quickest then winning the first two 125cc Rotax Max heats very much as he liked.

A first-lap incident saw him fail to finish the third heat but he still started and finished the Pre-Final in sixth position then went one better to cross the finish line fifth in the Final, setting the fastest race lap on the way.

“Things didn’t flow quite so well on Sunday,” he said of the Pre-Final and Final, “but we had good pace which is a great positive going into the Rotax Nationals meeting over here (Australia) in six week’s time.”

Kinsman was one of seven Kiwi karters who crossed the Tasman for the Rotax Max Pro Tour series meeting.

Best performances from the others came from the Drysdale brothers from Palmerston North.

Josh, the elder of the two, qualified fifth and worked his way from eighth at the start to fourth at the flag in the DD2 class Final, while Dylan, fresh from class victory at the NZ Schools’ Championship event, qualified sixth and scored two thirds and a fourth in the Junior Max class heats before finishing sixth in the Pre-Final and fifth in the Final.

There was good and bad news for the Stewart sisters from Wellington in the Junior Max Trophy class, with Madeline qualifying and finishing eighth in each heat and the Pre-Final then sixth in the Final, but Ashleigh qualifying 12th and carding a 12-9-10 run through the heats and 10th in the Pre-Final before being an early dnf due to a crash not of her making in the Final.

The other two Kiwi drivers at the meeting, Aucklanders Aarron Cunningham and Snow Mooney, contested the DD2 Masters class with Cunningham qualifying and finishing the Final 14th and Mooney qualifying 12th but ending up 18th in the Final.