Summarize

The East Rand's 2016 world Mini Max karting champion Jayden Els bounced back from a tough day at the races to score a stunning come from behind to win in the final race of Saturday’s Northern Regions Junior Max Karting Championship races at Vereeniging’s Laserfiche Raceway. Els was eliminated in a first race crash before becoming embroiled in an accident ahead of him in the second race of a wild weekend, but the team got it together for the final to allow Jayden to fight to a compelling win aboard his King Price CRG.

“Wow, that was a wild weekend!” Jayden admitted after his surprise final race win. “We tried something for qualifying that did not work, but we were not expecting to be so far back on the grid - that just shows how competitive this Junior Max class really is!  “Anyway I had fought back to third when Aqil Alibhai and I collided as I tried to pass him and we were both out — I bent my kart's axle, so I had to start race two from the back.

“Unfortunately I could not avoid two karts that crashed in front of me and I ended up with a bent chassis and had to fight really hard to get back to seventh, but the final was much better — we worked hard to fix it between races and the kart was good so I could fight back and I eventually managed to get to the front and we won the race.

“If bad luck comes in threes, I hope we are finished with ours now because it’s been three races in a row with drama - we have the national next here at Vereeniging and I think we are in a good place for that - hopefully we can get in front of the drama and clear off — bring it on!”