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Cape Town - Little Kwanda Mokoena made history by becoming the youngest driver yet to win a junior level karting championship at the tender age of 12-years-old.
Mokoena, who took advantage of South African karting shifting its minimum karting age limits lower for 2016, a year before international karting did the same; stepped up to Junior Rok at the beginning of the season and promptly took the championship with a dominant performance at a wet Vereeniging on Saturday (November 5).
Mokoena became the youngest driver to ever win a 125cc junior karting title competing against 16-year-olds at 12 years of age.
Giving thanks
Mokoena said: "I thank our heavenly Father God who provided for me and my family to get to where we are to do this."
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Kwanda's historic title came at the end of a trying season, where he missed out on two primary school national karting titles by less than a single point each.
The little champ continued: "It's been a tough year for me and the team and when we didn't win the two Maxterino Regionals at the beginning of the year I was very sad."
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Rotax prescribes that the Maxterino regionals count to the national points and after dominating in Port Elizabeth and Vereeniging with solid wins, Mokoena lost the championship by 0.25 points to come second in SA. He also ended second in the Mini Rok SA National Championship by just one point!
Acknowledging the good
Mokoena also pointed the good points of the; all of which culminated in him earning this coveted honour: "We managed to win two titles with Junior Rok and the African Maxterino championship, and I also qualified eighth in my class at the World Rok Karting Championships in Italy two weeks ago.
"That was really tough racing against the best in the world, but I learnt so much!
"Sometimes we will do a lot of races in a day, but my dad and Thabs (mechanic) told me to always just do my best."