Filipino racers shock again

AFTER the great wins of Milo Rivera and Carlos Anton in the just concluded Asian Gymkhana’s 2nd round in Korea, we have other Filipino drivers that made us proud and shocked the establishments in the process. From Karting to Supercars, we saw the Philippine flag displayed again on the top podium and here are just some of the hardworking and successful Pinoy racers.

King is king

Of all the champion racers, Angie Mead King is probably the most shocked of them all to go up the podium! Angie won the Malaysian round of the 2017 Ferrari Challenge Asia Pacific for the Pirelli Amateur Class last August 27, 2017 at the magnificent Sepang F1 Track. What made it shocking was that Angie didn’t expect it event after she finished the race!

Having more than 32 Ferraris on the grid and 3 race classes in one race, King was justifiably lost in translation after she started in 7th place. There were a lot of bumping going on ahead and she didn’t know the 5 guys ahead were all experts in a different class.

Angie led from start to finish while the AM class leader; China’s Yanbing Xing was hit on lap 8 and fell back to 3rd place. Japans’ Ken Weto took 2nd overall and his finish made him climb the leader board next to China’s Tiger Wu, who didn’t get on awarding podium.

This was such a great win for Angie after missing the 1st practice session due to her late arrival because of her business commitments in the USA. She had an accident with Xing in the 1st race that saw Xing spin out and the organizers penalized Angie with 25 seconds. Angie missed 3rd place in that race so the win in the 2nd race just made everything more memorable!

Before the Sepang round, Angie raced in Fuji, Japan where the historic, long track gifted her with a fantastic 2nd place in the 1st race. The overwhelming joy was immediately replaced with frustration when Angie was involved in a huge accident in the 2nd race that took out one side of her Ferrari 488.

Angie will miss the coming Ferrari Challenge this weekend in Singapore for the F1 weekend after missing the reservation period. She will compete though on the 3rd week of October in the World Finals of the Ferrari Challenge where all champions from the different parts of the world will compete.

Karting champs

The recent Petron Asian Karting Open Championship held in Carmona, the same weekend that King was victorious in Malaysia, saw Filipinos at the top step of the podium. The premiere Formula 125 Open Senior was dominated by Jacob Ang with the Junior class taken by Eduardo Coseteng Jr.

Even though the AKOC races had been dwindling in the number of racers, as also seen in other regional karting championships around the world, the 2 young Filipinos never wavered and maintained their competitiveness against more powerful opponents from Japan, China and Australia. Ang proved this by beating Japanese Takaharu Nakamori in all the races with Filipino John Dizon coming in 3rd.

The Eagle Cement-Petron Karting Team of Ang and Coseteng had been winning most of the local races for a long time. They have now trained and raced in Europe to hone their racing skills, with team manager and multi touring car champion Jody Coseteng providing the much needed, moral support.

Karting Queen

The great rise of unknown female, Cadet karter in 2012 to instant Race of Stars nominee this year, Bianca Bustamante had again given everyone a reason not to take her lightly. She won 2 races of the ROK Cup in China last August 20, 2017 against this mighty male-dominated motor sport!

Bianca had a lot of frustrating moments leading up to this superb display. She had to drop the AKOC series from her program after a lot of incidents involving other karters that took her out of the races. Bianca finally switched to the more competitive ROK Cup in China in June.

The Singapore leg the next weekend, August 27, 2017, she was brakechecked by a competitor and she hit the karter’s rear bumper. Bianca’s front bumper came loose only on the bottom part but it was enough for the organizers to penalize her 10 seconds that dropped her from a hard fought 3rd place. It was another frustration weekend to forget.

Bianca hopes to represent the Philippines in the upcoming ROK World Finals and has an offer to join the very competitive SKUSA race series in the USA.

These are just some of the great race wins of Philippine racers and we will bring more news about their races in the future. We hope that we can all support them so they will not give up and let’s pray for their continued success! Godspeed to all!