The racing world has seen it’s share of headlines over the past year. In Formula One, a team is virtually shut down, only to rise from the ashes and claim the driver’s and constructor’s world championships. At Le Mans, a classic manufacturer’s battle excites fans the world over from day, to night, then back into day. In NASCAR, a dynasty continued their dominance with a fourth straight championship win.
Yet, for all the diversity that exists in racing, the one common thread that links all participants, no matter what series they compete in, their age or background, is their passion for motor sport. Nowhere is that passion more evident than in karting, the purest form of motor sports competition.
BRP-Powertrain (formerly BRP-Rotax), a world leader in the production of recreational vehicles and engines, has yet again assembled many of the world’s top karting drivers to compete in it’s annual world championship event, the Rotax MAX Grand Finals. This year’s Grand Finals finds over 215 drivers from 50 countries in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt competing at Ghibli Raceway for top honors in three Rotax classes; Rotax Senior (MAX), Rotax Junior and DD2.
The Rotax MAX Challenge is unique in that each competitor must qualify in their own national championship race just to earn a spot at the Grand Finals. This format not only ensures the highest quality competition, it also adds the element of honor just to compete here. This is because for every driver that qualified to come here, there are many more back in their home country that were also giving their all just for the privilege of representing their country at the Grand Finals.
It is this aspect of national teams bonding together that is one of the most special aspects of the Grand Finals. It has become quite common in recent years for drivers to forgo their usual generic or kart brand-specific racing uniforms to don identical team uniforms resplendent in their country’s national colors and designs. This is one of the reasons the Grand Finals has become known as the “Olympics of Karting”. And, just like the Olympics, many participants will leave here at the end of the event with many new good friends from around the world that they never would have known otherwise.
But, unlike the Olympics, you don’t have to wait four years between Grand Finals. 2009 marks the tenth running of the Rotax MAX Grand Finals, an event that continues to grow in size and stature every year since the first RMGF in 2000 in Puerto Rico. Since that first race, the Grand Finals has been held in Malaysia, South Africa, Spain, Portugal, The United Arab Emirates, Italy and here in Egypt. In fact, this is the second time the Grand Finals have been held at Ghibli Raceway as Egypt joins Malaysia as the only two two-time hosts of the RMGF.
During the coming week, BRP-Powertrain will be providing daily updates of the action taking place at Ghibli Raceway and the 2009 Rotax MAX Grand Finals. We will also be providing short bios of some of the competitors and people behind the scenes that make the event so special. In addition, we will be publishing online galleries of photos from the event. If you have not done so already, remember to bookmark this site so you can check back every day for current updates.
From the entire BRP-Powertrain team, welcome to the 2009 Rotax MAX Grand Finals at Ghibli Raceway in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.
