Sodi Racing Academy providing a stepping stone from SWS to UAE Rotax Micro
Academy provides coaching and training for pre-teen kart drivers
The Sodi Racing Academy team of junior drivers were out in force for the 6 April round of the SWS Sprint Series at the Dubai Kartdrome, where they picked up two podiums during the course of an action packed afternoon.
Kamal Agha, Seif Al Naggar, Luis Velasco, Archie Sampson, Fritz Holst, Seva Rachkovskiy and Alice Haynes were among the 25 drivers who battled it out over four Heats, a Final and a Super Final on the day. Al Naggar was third overall in the heats standings and won Heat 4 in the process, with Agha claiming second place in the Super Final.
The Sodi Racing Academy has been running since February 2015 and came about when parents of young drivers approached the team to create a coaching and training programme pre-teen kids with the goal of establishing a stepping stone from SWS racing to the Micro category, which is part of the UAE Rotax Max championship.
Sodi Racing Team manager Nicolas Fargeas explained, “There are many kids racing in the SWS series who have shown great potential, but there has not been a cost effective step for them to progress into the Rotax Micro class.”
“After input from parents we decided to create the Sodi Racing Academy to cater for these kids. Thus we have developed this programme, headed by respected coach Nacho Girona, to provide coaching in SWS while providing weekly training for the selected drivers in our own Rotax Micro karts.”
This gives them experience in the faster two-stroke karts without parents having to pay for their own kart and everything that comes with it. The programme lasts three months whereby the kids are evaluated and we appraise them at the end of this period and advise parents on whether to proceed to the next level up from SWS to Micro.”
“By the end of the three months some of the current young drivers will be ready to progress, while others will perhaps need another three month programme or quit. But we will not take on board more than eight drivers for each three month programme. This current batch of drivers are in the programme until end of April.”
“Of the current group four or five have shown talent and ability to progress to Micro, and when they do move on we will look at the talent pool in SWS and target drivers to join our Sodi Racing Academy. In this way hopefully create a pipeline from the very first step of Kart racing, which in the UAE is SWS, to the next level on the UAE national scene,” concluded Fargeas.
