IORK 2022 Offical News

The Nelson Storm and floods did not stop us from resetting the 2022 event and having our best event to date, after losing several entries because of our postponement we finished up with 55 entries on the weekend. This was definitely enough to give us some top-notch racing and some of the most competitive racing we’ve seen at Pro Karts, and our fleet of finely-tuned karts did not let us down.

The new category of over 40s was unfortunate to take a late hit with 4 last-minute withdrawals leaving us with only 8 competitors in the category, but that didn’t stop the future grey power members from showing us that they still have the goods.

Top 3 finishers for the under 74.9kgs - Clint Paris (2nd), Josh Tomas (1st), Jacob Fleming (3rd).

The over 90 kgs were the most affected by the reduction in numbers from the postponement, but that didn’t change a thing with all the heats being very close.

Many drivers racing two or more categories meant the weekend was even more fatiguing than usual. However, it also gave those drivers the additional advantage of getting extra track time.

When it was finals time we started to see some new strategies this year with a few of the higher points scoring drivers opting out of selecting their favourite kart for the final, to instead take pole position and marble draw one of the leftover karts, this paid off for two drivers Josh Thomas (under 74.9 kgs winner) and Richard Ross (Over 40 years winner) both selecting pole position in the final then risking a marble drawn kart. Both drivers got away from the majority of the pack in the early laps of the final giving them enough breathing space from their potential challengers late in the 100-lap race.

The 75-89.9 kgs category was the biggest category with 19 drivers, and there wasn’t a lot between the whole group making it very hard to pick who the top 12 would be. Nelson’s Clint Paris showed his class taking out his third title in 3 years, and was very close to a fourth with a second place in the under 74.9 kgs category.

With a brand new second event in 2023, it will be good to see how some of our top drivers feature in Palmerston North next year.

The most improved driver for the weekend was west coast over 90s driver John Spencer, after qualifying 7th overall he drove the wheels off his kart in finished on the podium in 3rd, a very impressive performance in his second year at IORK.

And a very determined performance from Lawrence Sidnell who only weeks ago was in hospital after having a health scare. Lawrence bounced back to 2nd overall in the over 40 years category.

Well done to all of the drivers and thank you to all of our Pro Karts team who pulled together and worked their butts off over the whole weekend.

Next year there will be two events, 2023 we will bring an Indoor and an Outdoor IORK New Zealand Championship, XKarts in Palmerston North will be the new indoor hosts with 20 new Sodi SR4’s 270cc, this is the best indoor petrol kart track in New Zealand it should bring some really close fast racing on the high grip surface and again Pro Karts will host the outdoor round in September 2023.

Two IORK events in 2023!!

We are extremely excited to announce that from 2023 we will have two IORK events, the Nelson event in September next year and in May 2023 a brand new North Island event.

The new Indoor Rental Kart Championships will be at XKarts in Palmerston North on the weekend of 5th-7th May 2023.

From 2023 there will be an Indoor and Outdoor IORK New Zealand Rental Kart Championship, that’s two events and two titles!!

The IORK Outdoor event will be in September next year on the same weekend as this year's event, on the 20th - 22nd of September 2023

Click on the below click to see more.