Round 3 of the 2026 Na­tion­al Kart­ing Cham­pi­onship pro­duced a stand­out week­end of rac­ing at Waller­field In­ter­na­tion­al Race­way on Sun­day, head­lined by a new sin­gle-speed lap record from reign­ing Ro­tax Se­nior cham­pi­on Alex Ki­ran Shar­ma, a break­through maid­en fi­nal win for Marc Chong-Ash­ing in LO206 Ju­nior, a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive clean sweep for Cadet leader Lo­gan Ross, and the ar­rival of a wave of rook­ie debu­tants across the field.

Twen­ty-four dri­vers across sev­en class­es turned out un­der clear skies for one of the most com­pet­i­tive days of rac­ing the cham­pi­onship has seen so far. Rook­ies stamped their au­thor­i­ty on en­tire class­es, cham­pi­onship lead­ers con­sol­i­dat­ed their po­si­tions, and a hand­ful of class switch­es reshuf­fled the peck­ing or­der in ways few had pre­dict­ed.

In LO206 Cadet, Lo­gan Ross was in a class of his own. Pole po­si­tion, Heat 1, Heat 2 and fi­nal — a per­fect score card. His 43.997-sec­ond lap in Heat 2 was the fastest Cadet lap seen at Waller­field this year, and his 44.646-sec­ond bench­mark in the fi­nal con­firmed what the pad­dock al­ready sus­pect­ed: the reign­ing cham­pi­on is in omi­nous form.

The break­through high­light, how­ev­er, came from the John­son sib­lings, proud­ly sup­port­ed by their fa­ther, vet­er­an cir­cuit rac­er Stu­art “Sob­bie” John­son. Cruz John­son pro­duced an out­stand­ing de­but to slot in­to P2 in Qual­i­fy­ing, both Heats and the fi­nal, a rook­ie score­card most dri­vers would dream of. Younger sis­ter Havyn John­son stepped on­to a na­tion­al grid for the very first time and is ex­pect­ed to get quick­er. Scar­lett Ross round­ed out the Cadet or­der with a con­sis­tent third-place across the week­end.

Chong-Ash­ing stamps him­self on Ju­nior ti­tle race

If Round 2 had been a two-kart scrap, Round 3 trans­formed LO206 Ju­nior in­to the most un­pre­dictable class of the day. Six dri­vers, two rook­ies, a qual­i­fy­ing gap of just 0.010 sec­onds be­tween pole and P2, and a fi­nal re­sult no­body saw com­ing.

Rook­ie Liam Gill — son of kart­ing and cir­cuit-rac­ing stal­wart Marc Gill grabbed pole on de­but, edg­ing Marc “Hamil­ton” Chong-Ash­ing by the slimmest of mar­gins. Gill’s day quick­ly un­rav­elled, though, with DNFs in both Heat 1 and Heat 2.

Noah Nes­bit, un­beat­en in both heats, pro­duced the clos­est fin­ish of the en­tire day when he pipped “Hamil­ton” by 0.035 sec­onds at the flag in Heat 2. In the fi­nal, every­thing changed.

Chong-Ash­ing put to­geth­er a flaw­less 20 laps, post­ed the fastest lap of the race at 43.425 sec­onds (the quick­est LO206 time of the day), and drove away to a 5.036-sec­ond vic­to­ry. It was a state­ment dri­ve that put him firm­ly in the LO206 Ju­nior cham­pi­onship con­ver­sa­tion.

Gill, mean­while, de­liv­ered the dri­ve of the class. Start­ing from the back af­ter his heat mis­for­tunes, he carved through the field to claim P2 — a re­mark­able re­cov­ery and a clear nod to the fam­i­ly’s rac­ing pedi­gree. Evan Shairs­ingh round­ed out the podi­um, with Nes­bit set­tling for fourth. Fel­low rook­ie Mi­ka “Hakki­nen” Ali and Josea Blake com­plet­ed the field, both bank­ing in­valu­able race mileage.

De­onar­i­nesingh edges Singh in Mas­ters’ thriller

Reign­ing Mas­ters class leader Joshua De­onar­i­nesingh picked up where he left off in Round 2, de­spite hav­ing to sit out qual­i­fy­ing af­ter sus­tain­ing crash dam­age in prac­tice.

Anil Singh came out fir­ing in Heat 1 to claim the win, look­ing every bit the dri­ver de­ter­mined to erase the mem­o­ry of his Round 2 fi­nal dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion. Stock­lyn “Phil” Phillip took sec­ond and set the fastest lap of the heat. In Heat 2, De­onar­i­nesingh mus­cled his way to the front, with Phillip again set­ting the fastest lap and Singh hold­ing firm in third.

De­onar­i­nesingh and Singh served up 20 laps of wheel-to-wheel rac­ing that end­ed with just 0.272 sec­onds sep­a­rat­ing them at the flag, De­onar­i­nesingh hang­ing on for his sec­ond straight Mas­ters win and the fastest lap of the race. Singh’s sec­ond-place fin­ish was a hard-earned re­demp­tion and con­fir­ma­tion that he will be in the cham­pi­onship mix all sea­son.

In the Se­nior class, Sha­nia Per­sad pro­duced her best per­for­mance of the sea­son. Af­ter a frus­trat­ing Round 2, she was con­sis­tent, quick and com­posed all day — fin­ish­ing third over­all and, cru­cial­ly, tak­ing the Se­nior class win af­ter Kasey Ra­moutar could not fin­ish the race.

Phillip had blis­ter­ing pace all week­end — fastest in Qual­i­fy­ing, fastest lap in both Heats (all in Vaughn Ma­haraj’s kart) — but couldn’t quite con­vert in the fi­nal, set­tling for fourth over­all. Je­re­my Rag­bir com­plet­ed the grid in fifth.

Cha­ran ar­rives with a bang in Mi­ni Max

Ethan Cha­ran made the switch from LO206 Ju­nior to Ro­tax Mi­ni Max and im­me­di­ate­ly proved where he be­longed. Pole by near­ly half a sec­ond over Ki­ran Bhim­s­ingh, a com­mand­ing 9.615-sec­ond Heat 1 win, and a dom­i­nant 10.485-sec­ond fi­nal vic­to­ry capped a per­fect class de­but. His 40.416-sec­ond lap in the fi­nal was elec­tric.

Bhim­s­ingh was rock-sol­id, bank­ing con­sis­tent P2 fin­ish­es to keep him­self firm­ly in the ti­tle hunt. Lo­gan Ross.

Shar­ma takes To­tax fi­nal; Gar­cia 2nd over­all

The com­bined Ro­tax grid pro­duced the head­line act of the week­end. Alex Ki­ran Shar­ma, re­turn­ing to the Ro­tax Se­nior class af­ter run­ning Shifter at Round 2, claimed pole by 0.280 sec­onds over Ju­nior Max fron­trun­ner Axl Gar­cia (#3), and was the fastest dri­ver on track in every ses­sion of the day.

In Heat 1, 15-year-old Gar­cia stunned the Se­niors by tak­ing vic­to­ry out­right — a bold state­ment from a Ju­nior Max dri­ver de­vel­op­ing in­to a gen­uine­ly se­ri­ous prospect. Shar­ma re­spond­ed in Heat 2, hold­ing off a re­lent­less Gar­cia to win by 0.530 sec­onds.

In the 20-lap fi­nal, Shar­ma stretched clear of the field and set the new bench­mark lap on the tenth tour — a 37.606-sec­ond ef­fort at a top speed of 76.584 km/h that eclipsed the pre­vi­ous sin­gle-speed record for this con­fig­u­ra­tion of the Waller­field cir­cuit. He took the che­quered flag 10.105 sec­onds clear. Gar­cia claimed the Ro­tax Ju­nior class ho­n­ours and a com­mand­ing sec­ond over­all.