Jac Preston has taken his first ever SP Tools Australian Kart Championship round win in KZ2 at Murray Bridge, South Australia, while Ky Burke broached the top step of the podium in KA2 for the first time since round three last year to round out the second round of the five round Title chase.
Preston qualified down the order on Saturday and took until the third heat to get a handle on his Kart Republic chassis. The Queenslander didn’t have any such drama in the Final.
Starting on row number two, he quickly got himself into second and then set about chasing down current Australian Champion, Sam Dicker, and once he got by the West Australian, established a solid lead, going on to win by a second. Dicker joined Preston on the podium, along with his fellow West Australian, Dylan Guest.
Ky Burke got back to his winning ways in KA2, getting to the race lead on the opening lap, where he wasn’t headed from there on. It was the first win for the Bundaberg, Queensland racer since the Emerald round last year.
Burke usurped the perfect weekend for Sydneysider, Liam Carr who extended his Championship lead to 16 points, ultimately finishing second with Jye Flynn having one of his best KA2 weekends, finishing third. Burke moved to second on points and Flynn to third in the Title race.
Carr’s Championship rivals had a mixed weekend. Despite his best efforts, Cooper Folley missed the podium, but still gained a solid fourth place in the Final. Hamish Campbell’s weekend went from bad to worse in the last race of the day when he was ordered to the pit with a dislodged piece of bodywork.
Another new winner completing the family silverware haul was Sebastian Guest - Dylan’s brother - who took his first ever round win in KA3 Senior. He defeated Zac Heard who had one of his most competitive AKC rounds in some time and Christian Estasy.
The win propelled Guest to third in the Championship, while Heard assumed the Title lead from Jett Adamson with a 14 point margin heading to round three in Newcastle.
New Zealand racer, Kiahn Burt, took his first major win in Australia in TaG 125. The youngster, one of 17 international competitors in South Australia, had the perfect weekend and dominated the Final in his BirelART, winning by nearly six seconds.
Local driver, Jacob Dowson finished second to Burt with Oscar Priest getting himself back on the AKC podium. Through his results this weekend, Burt now leads the Championship by 18 points over Dowson, with early favourites, Jackson Souslin-Harlow and Harrison Hoey having dropped to third and fourth respectively.
KA3 Junior was a South Australian domination. Noah Enright bested the race-long battle with Dominic Mercuri that went down to the final lap, just 77 one-thousandths of a second separated the pair, with Riley Harrison completing the podium.
Enright now holds a slender three-point Championship lead over Mercuri, with Hudson Hughes moving into third position.
Jay Kostecki put on a masterclass to win the Cadet 12 Final - another notch in his already storied young career. He snuck over the line first in front of Jude Ammoun, who came through from 12th on the grid to finish side-by-side with Kostecki - the margin just 61 one-thousandths of a second. Oliver Williamson, after an exceptional weekend in heat races, finished third and former Cadet 9 Australian Champion, Brock Nolan came through for fourth - a touch over two tenths of a second covering the first four.
Kostecki now holds a three-point Title lead over Williamson, with Jarvis Hindle moving to third, 15 points behind Williamson.
Two drivers won their second consecutive Final in 2025 - Jaiden Pope in X30 and Milan Sami in Cadet 9.
Pope had largely been down the order throughout the weekend but came forward in the Final to win by 1.6 seconds. Multiple drivers had stints at the front of the field, including Isaac McNeill, who would ultimately finish in second position and Jace Matthews, who struck back with a third-place finish.
McNeill now leads the Championship by six points from Matthews, with Whitmore third and Pope in fourth. Pip Casabene, who was second on points ahead of Murray Bridge, didn’t start the Final due to a mechanical issue and has dropped to sixth on points as a result.
In Cadet 9, Sami structured his race perfectly to win yet again. In another classic Final, it produced the closest finish of the day. Sami crossed the line just 13 one-thousandths of a second in front of Ryder Xiong, who, until that point, had dominated the weekend. Hudson Kelly struck back to complete the podium. Through his efforts this weekend, Xiong has assumed the Championship lead by three points over Sami, with Kelly moving to third on the table.
The Championship now moves to Newcastle, New South Wales, over the weekend of June 13-15.
Full results and Championship points are available here.