Goulburn's Costa Toparis secured his latest major title over the weekend after a barnstorming victory in the Rotax NSW State Championships final on Sunday.
The 15-year-old was in hot form leading in, with over 50 race victories in 2021 alone, and added five more to his record across the weekend at the Coffs Harbour Kart Racing Club.
Costa comfortably won all three of the heats on Saturday, then burned through the opposition in Sunday's pre-final to set himself as the heavy favourite ahead of the final.
After a jam-packed schedule of racing, Costa saved his best performance for last and finished the climactic race, among a packed field of 27 drivers, more than five and a half seconds ahead of the next-closest driver, with a time of 16 minutes 40.233 seconds.
"He completely dominated, it wasn't close," Costa's father, Con Toparis, said.
"We expected Costa to be strong. With the Rotax motor, they run a MOJO tyre for certain combinations, the same that he's raced at the World Championships which he almost won [in 2019].
"So we thought he'd be strong on that, generally that's his strong point. There were six practice sessions on Friday, and he was fastest in four of them."
From here, Costa has a choice as to how he will finish off 2021. He may decide to compete in the final round of the Australian KA2 Championship, which will be held from December 10-12 at Murray Bridge in South Australia.
"Costa has a very good chance of winning that, he won the last round in Adelaide as well," Con said.
But, he has also been offered entry into the Rotax World Finals in Bahrain, which are set for December 11-18.
Due to the proximity of the final round of the Australian Championship and the World Finals, Con said he is "uncertain" whether Costa will take part in the latter.
"There's certain criteria [for the World Finals], you have to be there a week before, and that would then eliminate the possibility of winning the Australian Championships," he said.
"There's a few decisions to be made and hard work to be done."
While Costa has competed in the early rounds of the Australian Championship and would surely like to cap off his 2021 season, domestically, there is a significant temptation for the teenager to travel to Bahrain, as it would provide him an opportunity to claim a World Championship victory which he was denied by just a fraction of a second in 2019.
"We suspect he would be quite favoured to do very well there, as he nearly won it two years ago," Con said. "He only lost by eight hundredths of a second [in 2019]."
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