Eastern Lions Kart Club – Puckapunyal – 26/3/2016
Happy Easter to all!
Round 2 of the Australia Kart Championship was held over the Easter long weekend at Puckapunyal in Victoria. This is a really exciting track, where the kids hits speeds of over 100kph on the main straight.
We decided to camp on site, and really soak up the atmosphere (or we couldn’t get any accommodation nearby, but let’s go with the soak thing).
Friday was spent practising, followed by a fairly in depth debrief round the camp fire. There was plenty of discussion around set ups, driving techniques, and how I was holding my beer wrong. ‘TayTay the Destroyer” (or Tayla Heath as some may know her) dispensed some wisdom to Jim about how he needed to be a bit more aggressive.
Jim promptly took this heart and started chasing some kangaroos…
Jim managed to qualify in 34th (out of a field of 43), but we didn’t quite have the kart or engine right (sounds familiar). The junior team intensely studied the qualifying videos….
for about 30 seconds, before deciding to run off and have some more fun…
In heat 1 Jim had a DNF trying an ambitious move in the high speed turn 1.
In heat 2, Jim had a decent start, but some contact in turn 3 sent him to the back of the field. He chased really hard and managed to make up a few spots to finish 35th.
Heat 3 was marred by an accident at the start, and the race was red flagged. Jim got a little too ambitious on the restart, and lost control at the end of the straight, ending his race.
We managed to get a few things wrong for heat 4 on Sunday morning – some examples being kart setup, engine setup, tyre pressures, and what to order for lunch. Jim fought hard though, and bought the kart home in 35th.
The final saw Jim starting in 40th. Again, we didn’t get the engine setup right, and Jim was down on power. He did his best with what he had though, finishing in 36th.
Even though the results weren’t there, we had a really great, fun weekend, and learnt a lot. We’ve got some tips and pointers for things to work on, and we came away with a bit of confidence that things are starting to improve.
Thanks go out to Jim’s sponsor Iocane, and to all the people at St George Kart Centre and CRG Australia.