The 2023 IORK NZ Rental Kart Championships! The best event so far!!

What a turnout for this year's IORK event... 

The sun stuck around all weekend, and you could feel the winning tension in the air.

Friday morning we all gathered at Pro Karts, for the driver sign-in, and event briefing. Many participants walked the track, eyeing up those tricky corners to see how to tackle each one.

You could have cut the nerves in the air with a knife until their first race, and then it was all guns blazing!! The nerves wear off, and all heads are in the game.

Continued below.....

Pictured above for the under 75kg category: 2nd place, Johnny Curtis from Rotorua (Left). 1st place Jaylem Caley from Tauranga 3rd place, Jacob Fleming from Christchurch (Middle). 3rd place, Jacob Fleming from Christchurch (Right). 

Will you be joining us 6-8th of September 2024? 

2024 Super Save Deal - Lock In Your Place Now!!

The dates and categories have been confirmed for next year, and to celebrate such a successful 2023 event we wanted to offer you a super save deal for all early entries over the next 4 weeks only!! 

Use the code "IORKSUPERSAVE" and save 20% off your entry, You only need to pay a 25% deposit upfront which is just over $30, with the balance not due until July next year.

Did you get any IORK Merchandise??

We still have some merchandise available online if you missed out over the weekend??

We now have IORK merchandise available online, take a look at our new 2023 t-shirts, hoodies, and caps.

Continued...

The IORK event officially starts on Friday and runs through to Sunday. This year we had lots of eager and early starters come along to give the track a whirl on Thursday, practice day, and it was a great lead-up for the team and drivers to have a few laps to get their confidence and check out their pace.

Competitors from all over New Zealand, from the far North and across the South Island, it was spectacular to see so many participants enter this year. Each year we are always aiming to improve our event.

The support from other tracks is great, coming from around NZ for some great competition and fun. What they bring to our track is impressive. Nick Warburton owner of Supa Karts, came this year along with a team and on his first time at IORK took 3rd place in the over 40 years category, Lance Somerville from Bay Karts could not make it in the body, after being 3rd in the same category last year. However, he did have some of his best drivers make the trip and take home some trophies. The banter between tracks is always a great laugh, and they are all great mates off the track with the same common interest!!

Read more below......

A few quotes from drivers

Jono Camp – Christchurch

“Absolutely brilliant, couldn’t ask for better really”

Jaylem Caley – Tauranga

“Pretty tough out there, but really good fun”

Cam Wylie – Nelson

“It's been very enjoyable, everyone should come and do it”

Continued......

As dusk fell and the night came, the racing carried into the night. Several heaters cranking for the by-standers, different coloured lights lit up around the track and some good beats cranked in the background.

As the temperature dropped the engines started to raw and the racing went to another level as the cold air brought even quicker lap times. By the end of the night, we were starting to see who the 2023s standouts were and there were many new names being mentioned.

Day 2 kicked off with just over an hour of heat racing before we found out all the qualifiers for the finals.

Late Saturday morning the first finals were called up and the nerves were back in bundles. Chris Anderson won the over 40s and Dan Kennelly snatched the 105 and overs. 

We then took a break to rest the bodies before finals night started with the big 3 categories up for 3 hours of the most intensely close racing we’ve witnessed in the 4 years of IORK. 

16 individual trophies were won over the weekend, all the drivers deserving, so many others just missing out or a little bit of bad luck or one bad called being the difference. 

Dane Mcrae is one of those who came so close in the first, final of the evening. Leaving two of his four compulsory pit stops until the last 10 laps, with the last with only one lap to go. He pitted in third place but was passed while in the pits leaving everyone on the edge of their seats on the final lap wondering if he’d keep his placing, Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be this year but he still placed a well-deserved 4th place. Chris Anderson took his second victory of the finals, followed by Cam Wylie and newcomer Jordan Burn.

The under-75 category was the tightest with 21 entries and many repeat competitors back to compete for the title. Two former champions in the final, but unfortunately it wasn’t to be for either of them (Adrian Lang and Josh Thomas), Tauranga’s Jaylem Caley who two weeks earlier had just smashed Bay Karts lap record was too good and claimed the victory, followed by Rotorua’s Johny Curtis in 2nd and Canterbury’s Jacob Fleming backed up his podium from last year to repeat it again.

The final race of the night was the 75-89.9kgs final, This was another close race with multiple IORK champion Clint Paris not competing this year, it opened the door for last year's runner-ups to take a shot and they did! After 100 intense laps last year second place Chris Anderson took the win and his third for the weekend, and Christchurch’s Malcolm Hoogervorst also did one better this year to grab 2nd place.

The Bathurst team race on Sunday morning was the last chance of redemption for many, and the Supa Karts Christchurch team (Jacob Fleming, Malcolm Hoogervorst and Adrian Lang) who have been chasing this title for 3 years were too good this year, a dominant performance from start to finish had them winning the 200 lap race by 2 laps, over a mix Nelson/Greymouth team of Ben French, John Spencer and Cam Wylie.

Nick's Last Words

Hi Everyone,

We were really happy with how the 2023 event went, but myself and my team always want to do better every year. We have a number of small changes in the pipeline for next year's event that will hopefully help us take the event to the next level.

We introduced more technology this year, and hope to bring even more next year. We are also working on adding more karts to our large fleet and some cool updates to our timing and safety systems.

With the category changes and one additional category 18 years and under, plus an additional trophy for the highest driver 16 years or under, we are hoping to grow the event even more. 

We also learned a lot of new tricks on race-tuning our karts in recent weeks and we will be doing more testing over the coming months. 

Thanks again to everyone who competed in this year's event, we really appreciate you taking the time off and making the effort to come to sunny Nelson and we hope we delivered you a memorable weekend.

We can’t wait until next year's event and look forward to catching up with many of you again next year.

Thanks, Nick Fowler, Pro Karts - Owner