Southern Go Kart Club – Bolivar  – 23/1/2016

First race of 2016!

A new year, and a whole new bunch of challenges.  We’ve had some changes introduced for the new season – one of them being a new brand of control tyre.  This has provided some challenges, as we are yet to find a consistent setup with the new tyre.

The first race of the year was well attended, with 19 kids entered to race in the Cadet 12 class.

Qualifying didn’t go as planned as the kart lacked speed.  Jim was only able to qualify in 8th.  This made for a challenging day, with a unique race format consisting of 3 x 6 lap heats, a pre-final of 10 laps and a 15 lap final.

Heat one started badly, with Jim being hit in the first turn and falling back to 15th.  He managed to work his way back to 10th by the end of the heat.  Jim then started heat 2 in 10th place, and made up a few more places to finish in 7th.

The kart had some speed in heat 3, with Jim in the lead pack and looking to be one of the fastest karts on the track.  Unfortunately, Jim was involved in some contact while making a pass for 4th place, and fell to the back of the field.

Jim had to start the Pre-final in 17th place, and he worked hard through the race to get back to 7th.  Unfortunately, it appeared that previous contact had caused some damage to the kart resulting in slower lap times.

Jim started the final in 7th place and managed to get up to 5th but was slowly caught and overtaken and dropped down to 9th place by the end of the race.

All in all it was a challenging day for Jim.  He learned a lot, but was ultimately stifled by issues with car.  The current rumour in pit lane is that he is looking for a new mechanic so that he can get some consistent performance in the kart.

Thanks go out to Jim’s sponsor Iocane, and to Steve and Aaron Oliver for all their help.  Thanks to Josh Tynan for advice with driving and setup.  Jimmy would also like to thank all the competitors for some great racing, and all the officials and volunteers, without whom he wouldn’t be able to race.