Orduna emerges year's top karter

CLARK , Philippines  – Young Joey Orduna of Ready2Race completed his stirring feat even as Stefano Marcelo of TonyKart-San Miguel Corporation-Marcelo Racing dominated the championship round of the 2009 Magnolia Pure Water Karting Super Series recently at the Clark International Speedway.

The 14-year-old Orduna emerged the youngest karting champ and the first to win both the Karter of the Year and Junior Karter of the Year in a single season of this event sanctioned by the Automobile Association Philippines and sponsored by Magnolia Pure Water, San Miguel Corporation, Petron, Denso, Motorstar and Aeromed.

He wound up third in the 16-lap combined ROK Overall and ROK Junior race but it was all he needed to seal the championship with a seven-leg total of 342.5 points.

Orduna’s campaign almost ended in a disaster when he figured in a collision with teammate Roby Benito in the qualifying heat where he wound up 11th.

But he fought his way back moving up to sixth in the pre-final event and worked his way up to third in the final race.

The day also belonged to Marcelo who turned back Javi Benitez of Jet Racing in the ROK Overall class.

The two actually diced each out during the first few laps until Marcelo’s fastest laptime of 1:00.242 on the eighth lap secured his post all the way to the finish line.

He wrapped up the race in 16 minutes, 5.717 seconds or 4.567 seconds ahead of Benitez who showed big improvement in the past three legs.

Benitez bagged the overall runner-up trophy with 322 points while Juha Turalba took the second runner-up honors with 303.

Sharing the limelight was Milo Rivera of PCR-Tough Gear Racing-FERN-C who marked his first victory in the series via a sweep of the Formula SL Expert class, completing 16 laps of racing in 18 minutes, 1.517 seconds to turn back older and more seasoned rivals Indy Villalon and Joel Caniza of AUTS Racing.