Cranston off to final in Portugal
Manawatu karter Jacob Cranston has booked himself a sport at the Rotax Max Challenge Grand Finals meeting at Portimao, Portugal.
Cranston is part of the sevenstrong Kiwi squad set to travel to Portugal in November.
The final pieces of the annual grand final line-up fell into place at the double points/double header round of the New Zealand Rotax Max Challenge series at the Kartsport Hamilton club’s Agrisea Raceway last weekend.
Heading the line-up, and a driver with very good memories of his last grand final meeting at the Portimao track, is Aucklander Ryan Urban, the only Kiwi so far to win a class title at a grand final (at Portimao in 2015) meeting.
Backing him up are fellow 2016 grand final representative Tiffany Chittenden from Christchurch, fellow 2015 rep Daniel Bray and firsttimers CJ Sinclair and David Malcolm (Auckland), Cranston from Palmerston North, and Ryan Wood from Wellington.
The annual grand finals meeting pits national and regional Rotax Max Challenge class winners from around the globe against each other at a multi-day meeting to find the best Rotax class drivers in the world.
A veteran now of five previous grand finals campaigns around the world, Urban was one of three drivers from the DD2 Masters class to earn a tripthis year.
The other two were class series runner-up Chittenden, and the first over-50-year-old home, Malcolm, who finished fourth overall.
The DD2 class was the other with more than one grand final berth available, with both overall series winner Bray and runner-up Sinclair earning trips.
Also heading to Portugal are Cranston and Wood.
The quick and consistent Cranston had the Rotax Light class
title won - and with it his own ticket to the grand final - at the end of the first day of competition at the final double-header round at Hamilton, allowing him to sit out the final series round on Sunday.
Wood had to duke it out until the end to ensure the Junior Rotax title was his, after a season-long battle with Rianna O’meara-hunt.
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