Arab Wings Team Jordan
A first-time entrant at the Grand Finals is the team from Jordan. The Jordanian team consists of three drivers; Saif Abdulhadr (DD2), Anwar Malas (MAX) and Izz Bustami (Junior MAX). Each driver has set a personal goal to learn as much as possible while competing here in Al Ain in preparation of future Grand Finals.
Even though Jordan is a new entrant at the Grand Finals, they have gone about their participation in a very professional manner. They’ve even managed to attract a corporate sponsor in Arab Wings, a Jordanian corporate jet charter service. Arab Wings chose to support their national ROTAX team as a social responsibility and feel the international nature of the Grand Finals was a good platform for their marketing campaign.
Arnaldo Frias
Arnaldo Frias is the ROTAX Distributor for Spain and Portugal, and was the host for last year’s Grand Finals. We asked how business had been for him since last year’s race in Vienna do Castello, Portugal, “It’s been great. In fact ROTAX has had tremendous growth in our area since last year’s Finals” said Arnaldo. He then went on to add, “There are three regions that race ROTAX in Portugal. And each one has more entries than the national CIK championship.”
When asked why ROTAX has had such growth in the last year he said there are two main reasons. First, because of the Grand Finals, people can see something beyond just the local racing series. Second, because of the influx of new karts in Portugal and Spain after last year’s event, there are a lot of new racers. Arnaldo is also the Intrepid Karts inporter. After last year’s Grand Finals he took delivery of all 70 Intrepid karts used in the MAX category. Within one week, he had sold every one of them. When asked if he would like to hold host the Grand Finals again, his answer, without hesitation was a definite Yes!
Wesleige Orr
Wesleigh Orr is the only two-time ROTAX World Champion, having won titles in the 2004 and 2005 seasons. His success in ROTAX karting has been a springboard to getting drives in some prestigious car racing series. After his championships, and being a test and development driver for a few different kart manufacturers, Wes went on to compete in Mexican Formula Renault and won a 4-driver shootout to be South Africa’s A1GP junior driver.
When asked how the car racing was going, Wes said, “It’s very difficult challenge. But I enjoy it and work very hard at finding success.” Wes said no matter what he is racing, he will always have karts around to stay sharp and in shape.
Manfred Weissgarber
Manfred Weissgarber worked at BRP-Rotax for over seven years as the Sales & Marketing Manager of the karting division. A year and a half ago he left the company and ended up forming a partnership with ROTAX Euro Challenge Coordinator Roland Geidel. Roland has a chemical engineering background and had developed a line of products specifically for karting called Kart Care.
The partnership has been a success and Manfred continues to be a familiar face at all ROTAX Grand Finals since he uses the ROTAX series to promote his products. Manfred also works as a consultant to Heidenau, the tyre manufacturer that makes the Mojo tyres for ROTAX racing. Recently he has helped Mojo develop the new D2 tyre and says there’s an even newer D3 in development for the 2009 racing season.
Ton Van De Burgd
Ton Van De Burgd is the ROTAX distributor for Holland and the manufacturer of the Kombi kart. His team has had a lot of reasons to celebrate over the past couple years with a World Championship win two years ago in Malaysia and a first and second in the MAX class last year in Portugal.
Ton attributes the success of the team on an international scale because the competition is so strong back home. “We are a very small country, yet in all of Holland we have three regions containing a total of 400 ROTAX drivers. With numbers like that, you’re bound to develop very strong drivers,” said Ton. He also added that the high level of competition combined with the low cost is what has made the ROTAX Challenge so popular in his country.
ROTAX BRP