 Hi everyone and welcome to the karting vlog. This is the end of January 2023 and I thought why not make a monthly vlog on Karting because it's something we're gonna be taking quite seriously this year We are gonna be trying to to win at least the regional Western Cape DD2 masters And potentially compete in the nationals which if we win We then get to go to the grand finals now in the grand finals Every single country will not every single country about 60 or so different countries said Representatives of people who have won their nationals and we compete in something called the grand finals Where after a series of knockout races there is a final where the winner takes all Now in these grand finals that are held by Rotax Since 2001 when they kind of started South Africans have won it about 15 times I think there's 15 titles and The reason why South Africa is so successful in karting especially in the DD2 masters Because in order to race in the DD2 masters you have to be of the age 32 or Above and I just qualify because I'm gonna be turning 32 in December this year, so I'm I'm almost one of the youngest people there's ever written in DD2 masters Which is a huge advantage because? Children are very fast in go-karting like the youngsters the teenagers They they absolutely Dominated me when I raced in the normal DD2 class last year But there is hope for me in the modest masters category, especially because of my age So age which was a big yeah a big weakness last year has turned into to my greatest strength I think my main competitor for this year. I think he's 50 I think I think like a year ago. He turned 50 or or something. I saw it on Facebook So hopefully age is gonna gonna come to yeah Come to the aid because one of the big skills that you need in order to do Karting and I guess just motor racing in general is reflexes and your reflexes do tend to decrease With age I think so I think so. I don't have any scientific literature to to back that up So please fact check me on that But I think that's the case that your reflexes do drop with age But yeah, it's kind of one of these things where what makes I guess South Africa unique is we have a really big You know racing culture and and history. I mean we had a world champion in Formula one Jody Schechter 19 But I should know this is it the somewhere in the 1970s I think around yeah roughly around there and of course when Michael Schumacher was Winning so many races It was because he was driving in a car designed by Rory Burns Who was a South African in fact? I was quite good friends with I think it was his nephew or his grandson or a relative of Rory Burns and we kind of grew up in the same little town up in Johannesburg and We played together and and all that and my dad's friends was with Rory Burns And of course, you know He designed such a successful car that Schumacher would go along with Ferrari and and dominate Formula one So South Africa is definitely involved in in motor racing However, because we're so isolated geographically from the rest of the world We've really struggled to attract any of like the big races That's why I said it's a big big thing that Formula E is is coming to our country this year but we've really struggled to get Formula one into our country because Not only just your geographically so so far away, but it's kind of like yeah There's there's not that many tracks in in our country Where it's like if you're in Europe, you know, you've got all the different countries and you do the whole kind of thing Which means here in South Africa. We don't really have that many, you know really fast classes for people to go into off the carting like that's kind of like You have to go international if you want to you know Eventually get into Formula one and what that means from a South African context is that a lot of us are staying in carting Because carting is a lot cheaper and like I said South Africa, you know Our currency is is not the strongest currency by far And we've also got quite a lot of import duties and all those type of things so motor racing very very expensive We don't have the infrastructure. We don't have a lot of the you know the big power series so a lot of people do stay in Carting and That's what means. That's the result of why our DD2 masters class for people age 32 and above Tends to have a lot of racing drivers who should have moved on to more You know more powerful classes of normal main circuit, but instead have stayed in in the carting arena So it's going to be quite interesting because also last year I was looking at the top three drivers who Who raced last year in South Africa's nationals and apparently this is only apparent because we are only going to know this Once the first national happens, which is going to be in in March So we'll only know then if they have off they haven't registered But the rumor is that the top three drivers from last year will not be competing this year the first guy because well He won the championship. It's it takes you know, even though it's cheaper than main circuit It's still a significant budget and it's kind of like he's accomplished He's life goal of becoming South Africa's national champion and competing in the grand final, of course He didn't do that. Well in the grand final. I mean he made it to the final race, which is of course great But I don't think he made it into the top 10. I think it was like 11th or 12th, which was Disappointing from a South Africans, you know legacy, you know, like I say we tend to win this thing And if we had won it then it means that more tickets would have been available Which means if you come first or second in the national you could have gone to represent the country But he didn't get that which means there's only one I think there's only going to be one ticket this year for for d2 masters or there's there's two there's So I think the past we've had up to three it was first and second And then we have this other ticket. It's not just for South Africans though. That's why it's kind of You know carting gets a little bit confusing, but it's a vlog So I'll explain it all to you guys here and the idea is that there's this race called the African open And anyone in the whole of Africa can come to this one race. It's like 20 laps You know, it's like 40 seconds a lap. So it's not even that long and Everyone comes in it's one race one entry and whoever wins that race gets a wild card ticket To go to the grand finals and the idea behind the African open was let's say there was an amazing driver from Botswana or Zimbabwe or one of the other African nations But they don't have you know, the whole national and regional Infrastructure that South Africa has they can come compete and technically, you know Even if you're in Zimbabwe or Botswana or wherever you are in Africa You can have a shot at getting to the grand finals and winning the championship However, and I'm stent. Yeah, I should probably do research before I do these vlogs But I don't think a non-South African has ever won the South African open Now the rumor is that those top three racing drivers From last year will maybe compete or are more likely to compete in that one race and go forth Then you know competing the national circuit because the national circuit Yeah, you have to race all around the country and there's quite a lot of expense when it comes to traveling and basically shipping Shipping your car across. Yeah, South Africa. It's quite a big country You know, so that take like about 14 hours 15 hours to drive from Cape Town all the way to to Johannesburg So, yeah, it's not like something you can just do, you know Two-hour drive to get to the get to the other circuit So we were originally thinking of doing the African open But if the situation is that the top three drivers are not going to be racing In the national and instead are going to do that one Then it's most likely that they're going to beat us because the person who comes fourth in the nationals He's the 50 year old. He's also going to be racing in the regionals And the first regional is in February. It's like in 11 days time very very close and Basically, he is the favorite for for the nationals this year he's made plans to go to all the national races and he has represented South Africa In the past and he still is incredibly fast. In fact last year Even though he was in the db2 masters class and I was in the you know, the junior class with less weight He still beat me every single race. I only are qualified him once because What we do is we race with the the juniors or the normal class And I only are qualified him once when I had the weight advantage So then you might be saying but oh, okay, Michael How do you how do you expect to win then if this guy's a lot quicker than you? And this is where this year gets very very interesting Is due to the whole war in russia and ukraine There's been a supply shortage of rubber to the mojo tire manufacturer Which means in South Africa We are getting a different tire manufacturer. It's called the the vega tires And these things are very very different. I put them on my cart earlier this year We went out and I was slipping and sliding so much oversteer in every single corner absolutely crazy And I was like, you know what this is Brilliant this is amazing This is basically going to be leveling the playing field because I've only really been driving Well, I've only been doing carting since the end of 2017 so 2018 was my first full season And then it was in the clubman's class and the senior max So I've only done dd2 You know for like two kind of years although last year was very much Interrupted because I was flying all over the world Um, we were in denver new york, istanbul, south korea everything for for work reasons So I did miss a couple of of races, which isn't great if you're trying to get points for for the championship But also I didn't kind of take it that seriously. It was very much, you know, carting It's just a little bit of a side hobby I knew I was going to get destroyed by the younger guys in my class But this year I feel like I can kind of win so been going to the track almost uh Yeah, almost I think I've been to the track more times in january 2023 Then almost I went to their track in the whole of 2022 So we've been putting in a lot of time and one thing that is like we'll just behind this number four driver All the person came forth in the nationals last year who's another favorite just behind him is my brother They kind of very very close in pace with this guy being just a little bit faster My brother being like I say a lot faster than me as well beating me in every single race last year Now my brother came. Well, it was it was yesterday We went to to practice for the first time together And I was quite comfortably a second quicker than my brother And of course he needs to learn the Vega tires. He needs to get used to everything He's been a little bit rusty. He's been to Mauritius on a holidays picked up weight Which is acting against him and he is a little bit older than me as well And I think age is starting to factor in so I really feel like I can take on my brother who is the biggest competitor for the regional and like I said, this is where Carti gets a little bit weird. It gets a little bit complicated because There's the guy who's going for the nationals But his plans are not to race all of the regionals in the Western Cape And if you don't race all the regionals the way the point structure is It's very very difficult. In fact, it's almost impossible to win if you unless you compete in all of them So if he's not going to be competing in all of them, even if he beats us in all the races We might still beat him for the championship of the regional class Simply because we attended more races and got more points that way Which means in the regional class my biggest competitor is my brother Who so far i'm pre-testing I am a lot quicker. So going into the regionals I do kind of feel a little bit like a favorite I know that's kind of an arrogant thing to to say, but you kind of need confidence in In motorsports you need to have that belief in yourself You know break as late as possible go for the gaps as you can so I understand y'all it is maybe a little bit arrogant calling myself favor for for the regional but it's uh It's some self belief that I think is is needed is warranted So we're going to be looking forward to y'all taking the regional crown But the big thing is is that we're racing now in february and if I can win this race in february And beats the guy who came fourth last year Then and if the the top three are also not going to be driving uh this year as well Then i'm kind of thinking well, maybe the national is is a possibility as well So it's really really scary because it is a possibility That I could make it to you know the grand finals at the end of this year Represent south africa, which like I said Historically is a favorite has dominated this class. So, you know, we'll go in there And and hopefully be be at the top of the the timesheets There is a british driver at the moment though indeedy two masters who who is on fire who is amazing So if he's going to be racing Yeah, I don't think I'll be able to to beat him But you never know what's his life plan is what's going to happen whether he will compete as well And I think that's the nice thing about diddy two masters Is it's not as professional as the youngsters. So the youngsters kind of this is their entire life This is what they do. This is what they dedicate their time to be because you know, there is the dream of becoming A formula one driver. There's so much more, you know on the horizon Whereas diddy two masters, we're all 32 or older. This is it. This is the pinnacle of the sport Um, you know, there's there's nothing more beyond this So for us, you know carting is it is a hobby at the end of the day And I'm actually going to try and do that as well is make a Maybe make a vlog for my actuarial career Um, which is you know what I do for on a day-to-day basis to hopefully bring home a salary To afford to do carting as well as my my other hobby, which really fascinating me at the moment Which is philosophy. I mean getting into some philosophical discussions and and all those kinds of things and um, Yeah, so carting And for those of you who know me, I'm also black big into pokemon big into chairs big into You know traveling. So there's all these other things but carting. I'm trying to make as the focus for 2023 because it's kind of like this one. There's a ticking time bomb, you know At least chess you can improve with age pokemon your collection accumulates in time carting My I've reached that age where I know my body fuck is is against me and also I do carting with my dad So my dad is like my my chief mechanic My main helper my my manager also helps sponsor financially, you know, just assist in that front as well Um And the whole thing is that job my dad's also getting quite old. So I want to go in this year and Almost win it for him, you know, that's that's also part of the the motivation It's like, why are you doing this? Like are we not for the plastic trophy? Um, or you know the the recognition because like I said, there's nothing after dd2 masters It's like, well, what's the point of winning? Why do you want to do it? And that main reason is it's to win for my dad. So my dad's has a huge huge history in in motor racing I mean, he even had a back in the house in Johannesburg He had this little picture of him standing with Nelson Mandela and Bernie Eccleston in the early 2000s trying to get Formula one into South Africa And unfortunately that fell apart because of the rend the South African currency deteriorating And of course, I've now studied actuarial science. I was like dad currency risk You should have, you know, managed that with some sort of derivative You know, you could have short the rent. So when the rent falls, you know, you have enough funding to to keep going with it But you know, it's it's interesting how a lot of your financial risks aren't really addressed when it comes to Day-to-day operations, especially back then even on such a big project as getting Formula one in But anyway, my dad he used to race when he was younger. Um, he absolutely loves Formula one And we've always watched it from Yeah, since I was an absolute child I've been watching Formula one learning all about it And it was crazy because as a kid I would watch Formula one and be like, you know what? I can do this. I can like I would watch from one and be like, this is so easy Why are these guys paid so much? Why are they celebrating so much? All they're doing is turning a little wheel pushing an accelerator hitting a brake like this is so easy I can do it And then after doing karting and realizing how difficult and demanding and technical karting is And then seeing Formula one and realizing that it's like a million times more intense I would now watch Formula one and I'm like, this is insane. How do these people do what they're doing? This is absolutely Incredible, it's astonishing and I now have got absolutely no faith in ever being able to to drive a Formula one car It's one of those things where I'm just like this this will never never happen um Even though like In a weird and a little bit off topic even though like a weird sense I kind of owned a Formula one car for for like when did we get them 20? 2015 and now we're we're selling them now, but you know for the past. What's that? couple of years, um We've had some Formula one cars in our possession So what happened was there was the a1 gp series which was this idea that They wanted to make a world cup of motor racing where every country got their their own like Formula one car And when they started out, they weren't really Formula ones. They were some Lotus I think a Lotus or some sort of single-seater Formula and it was a lot of fun. It was really cool. You know, it was sort of starting to pick up And then in early 2007 they upgraded the cars to Ferrari Formula one cars based on the f I think it was the 2004 which was the one that burn Rory Burns made Schumacher dominated in so they made 20 of these Ferrari Formula one cars For the a1 gp. It was going to be like the world cup of motorsport And then just like seven races later. There was that whole financial crisis Which is weird because that whole financial crisis would be the reason why the actuaries would develop You know enterprise risk management and the chartered enterprise risk actually Roll which is the professional body that are now belong to so it's weird how that financial crisis was very prevalent in my life Because not only did it create the profession that I would later go into But it also caused northern rock and a lot of other financial backers to withdraw from a1 gp And the whole series kind of collapsed and the delivery company took a lean on it My dad being a lawyer tracked the whole court case He did a bit of our funding And you know, we kind of made like a little company that my family went in with myself My brother and my dad we went in as you know, one of the one of the owners of this new company that purchased these these cars Um, and then we got there in 2015 The problem is they came without any of like the steering wheels or the electronics, which turned out to be a very very important and expensive piece of the puzzle and then also the sponsor that was going to To support this whole thing the CEO of that company Unfortunately had a stroke and the interim CEO was like, whoa, this is quite a big project I don't want to kind of do it under my under my watch, you know, let's rather do some less risky things And ultimately, you know, these formula one cars kind of turned into a bit of a white elephant, but we're slowly Selling them off and you know shapes caused my dad A fair fair amount of of stress as you can imagine, but it has been a childhood dream of his, you know to kind of You can see he's so passionate about about racing He wanted to start Well, the whole idea behind that was to start a racing school in South Africa So in formula one one of the things is that people just don't get enough experience because Testing is limited to try and you know, keep the cost quite low. I mean here. We're spending like 4 000 rand, which is about 300 250 dollars on a set of tires and that's for little go-kart wheels So you can imagine how expensive it's going to be for Uh, for a formula one car, um, you know more testing you do the more tires you burn the more where you have on all the components So to try and limit that formula one kind of like limited testing But that means that the The new drivers are at such a disadvantage to the old drives and that's why we're seeing guys like Lewis Hamilton Alonso, okay Vettel's just recently retired now But it's why those drivers that are really old are still so competitive because in the past like I say age normally takes away Your reflexes But in formula one because the youngsters didn't have enough time to Get enough experience The older guys experience was able to dominate that that youth and the whole thing with this a1 gp, which we renamed aphryx Was going to address that by allowing people to test the car Here in south africa get that seat time under their belt so that when they would do go to formula one They knew how to operate, you know, such a complex and extremely fast car now They actually are videos on youtube so you can actually type in aphryx Um, you can go check them out there like my brother's youtube channel He's also posting videos of of his karting Um, and hopefully this year we're gonna coordinate our go-pros together so we can kind of have A seamless race also in our team this year. We were making Um, I guess a change so last year we had jill was part of our team Jill really big into cars worked at at Porsche. He's a Porsche salesman In fact, he was the salesman who I bought my My two gt4s from um, I remember walking in one day and looking at the We're taking my sister-in-law's Porsche in for for a service my dad and I I was looking at this caiman Gts and my dad, you know knows so much about cars He's like no this car's wrong because of this this this and that And the salesman over here is my dad saying this he says well You know, we've just got these two cars that have come in we haven't even put them on the floor Haven't even like kind of put them on the system yet. They've literally just come in Do you want to go to the back and check them out and they were these two? You know gt4s remember they were like covered in dust and everything like that And my dad was like just singing the praise telling me oh, Michael. This is the best car ever You know it's this it's that you know going on and on and so I just said to the salesman Okay, cool. I'll take I'll take both because I remember when they came out in 2016 They were my brothers like favorite car my brother absolutely Love these things and he couldn't get one because it was a limited like design. So they kind of said like, okay You know only Porsche's preferred customers kind of got these things I think only 33 came into the country. That's that's what I heard of course, you know Like I say take every every factual statement in this with a pinch of salt We're not uh, we're not fact-checking it. Um, but apparently only you're only a 33 of The nine young and I'm Is it the nine one eight seven one eight? I don't know. I get really confused with the Porsche numbers It's the 2016 ones the 2016 one. I think it's the nine eight six nine something something um Anyway, only 33 apparently came into the country and two of them were just sitting there So I was like, you know, I'm just gonna take both Told my brother, which color do you want? He took the black one and I'll drive the the silver one and um, I remember then taking it on the track at At Killani main circuits, you know where we do carting. We're into the main circuit with this thing And oh my gosh, it was it was insane. In fact, if I didn't do carting In fact, if you don't do carting or a form of motor racing, you should not drive the GT4. It's uh It's an absolute insane beast really really incredible piece of of equipment Absolutely love it, but uh, we're going completely off topic coming back. So after we bought these these gt4s, um Jill the salesman was like, oh, what do you guys do? We told him about carting And remember he came out to carting and he was helping me out with carting I was like, wow chicken Porsche's customer service like the salesman Is now helping me with with my cart and he saw All the motor racing and he's like, you know, I want in I want to be part of your guys team So we all kind of had the same sticker kit. This is in 2021 Jill joined the team And um, you know, it was like my first year in in dd2 We went out. I was driving a crg at the time absolutely hated that thing hate crg I'm now on burl Much prefer that these are the different carting chassis that you can get both are Italian And yeah, so we went out in these blue sticker kits that I kind of designed was a lot of fun And yeah, it was really I was getting worried because Jill Jill reminded me so much of like chelsea clack He just had that same vibe to him and Jill was just getting quicker and quicker and quicker And towards the end of last year Jill was you know, there were quite a few races where he was He was in front of me. I don't think he ever He ever beat me because shame. He always always plagued with reliability issues or these type of things. He had a slightly older car to to us Um, there was always giving him him problems But your jill has now stepped out of car team for 2023 But we've got a new racing driver who's joined us who has the same name as my dad Which does make it a little bit confusing when we refer to him. It's like are you talking about your dad? Are you talking about your your teammate and absolutely love this guy's passion love? He's enthusiasm also was quicker than him last year, but He's at the track even more often than than me and he's closing in and we're almost like Almost on the same same kind of time. So there's my brother and him That we have to worry about for for the regional thing Although it's weird Like I said, I only win this thing for for my dad and the fact that the three of us will all be driving under the Same colors under my dad's ownership If one of the three of us win, I'm gonna count it as as a victory because it's like, okay cool We accomplished what we wanted to do for for my dad. So Really am trying to go in with that that team mindset Although once the the visor goes down you do tend to become a lot more selfish and you know, you want to win for yourself But I keep telling myself, you know, at least try win as a team. So He's actually coming tomorrow To my place to play on the simulator and I think I'll maybe Maybe end off on this. So we've got a carting simulator We've got the actual track that we race here in Cape Town lays it in And we can sit in a simulator in my living room And we can actually go through the circuits and do all that in fact We're gonna be racing on the 7th of february Um a carting race, but it's it is very different. It's a very different experience And we're a lot slower on the simulator and the virtual game than we are in reality But he's gonna come over tomorrow. We're gonna try that out And so that's yeah a little bit of an update to to the team structure But sure, I think I've been going on for for 30 minutes So let me maybe wrap up this this vlog for january and basically just say, yeah We're going out. We want to be competitive this year We're racing to win which is the first time since clubman. So clubman's my brother and I there was the final year My brother won. I came I came second in it Um, but this is like the first time in like a professional class that we're actually competitive We're going for the title and that makes it really really exciting I'm also thinking of maybe making some cool little, you know NFTs and air dropping them to people for free just, you know, for a fun thing to commensurate the whole thing Which of course they should maybe have a little bit of value if we do ever become world champion Um, but I'll talk about that and the carting and everything else gonna like I said, try to do a monthly vlog Keep you guys updated with what's happening with me on my hobby around carting, which I know This is a channel. This is an actuarial channel You come to watch tutorials on on how to do math problems not to Not to see what this kid does in his spare time But I thought, you know what it'll be a fun video for me to watch Uh, you know when I'm a lot older look back upon so I guess at the end of the day, you know these vlogs The primary audience for these vlogs is is my future self Um, but with that said, I hope you guys enjoyed it Feel free to say whatever you want in the comments down below And I'll get back to you at the end of february