Christophe Boisclair (MAX)
Perhaps no one has more Grand Finals experience than Terrebonne, Canada’s Christophe Boisclair. Christophe started his RMGF career as a Junior MAX competitor in 2004 at the Ghibli Raceway in Egypt and has competed in every event since. This gives the young driver a total of five Grand Finals appearances.
This year the 17-year-old is racing in the MAX category and rates Al Ain as the best Grand Final yet. “This track is very nice. And it’s very nice not to have any rain for once,” claimed the young driver. Unlike many successful karters, Christophe has no desire to racecars. However, he does enjoy attending the Formula One race when it travels to Montreal.
Mike Simpson (MAX)
Another talented karter that is not interested in racing cars is Michael Simpson from Hull, England. Michael is also making a return trip to the Grand Finals after placing second last year in Portugal. He hopes to make it one step higher on the podium this year and is looking set to do that after placing first after all the heat races have been run.
Michael is in Al Ain with his father, Mike Sr., as his tuner. Both are engineers by trade and work well together. As a special form of driver training, Mike Sr. built young Michael an electric-powered kart when he was just 3 years old. The kart had gauges to show Michael how the kart used extra power when turning and taught him that going straight is faster. Very clever!
Arie Ouimet (MAX)
South Lyon, Michigan’s Arie Ouimet made history for the American team as the first driver to win a heat race at the Grand Finals. The 16-year-old has had quite a bit of success in the seven years he’s been racing karts. His biggest win so far was being crowned 2003 World karting Association Grandnational Champion in the HPV Junior Sportsman class.
Klemens Dolzer
Klemens Dolzer is the Director of Sales and Marketing for BPR-Rotax. He has been with the company since 1996, but has only worked in the karting division since 2003. When asked what is the most important aspect of the Grand Finals he said, “For sure the racing is the most important aspect of this event. However, The cultural exchange between competitors of different nations and backgrounds is also very important. We want each participant to have a very unique and satisfying experience at the “Olympics of Karting.”
Klemens also went on to praise the team from Pro Motorsports that has worked so hard to make this happen, “Guy (Sheffield) and Tony (Kekati) and their crew have worked miracles to make this year’s Grand Finals such a excellent event. We really appreciate all of their hard work and dedication.
Helmut Voalsam
Helmut Voalsam is the Supervisor of Sales and Marketing at BRP-Rotax. He’s been with the company for 21 years, starting as a maker of technical documents for the company. After working for the sales side with customers such as Aprilla and BMW, Helmut moved to the ROTAX MAX program and has seen it develop from day one. When asked if he could envision the MAX program growing as large as it has, with a huge grin he said, “Yes, of course! That was the plan.” Then Helmut added, “Just wait and see where we go from here!”
ROTAX BRP