Barossa Go Kart Club – Nuriootpa  – 28/5/2016

Time to go racing under lights at the Barossa Go Kart Club.  It was a fairly late night (we got home around 1:30 am), so my recollection of the events of the race meet may be inaccurate due to lack of sleep.  Anyway, this is the way I remember it…

Let me tell you a tale of racing, of hope, of joy, of disappointment, of dancing, of coldness, of exorcism,  and of course, racing (stick with me, I’m sure we can tie it all together somehow).

The Barossa Night Titles is a race meeting held at the Barossa Go Kart club, under lights – at night (you probably figured that out though, the name is a bit of a giveaway).  The format was qualifying, followed by 2 heats, a pre-final, then the final.  It was final only counts, so it was important to get a good starting spot for the last race (see, I just covered one of the racing bits).

We started during the day, and spirits were high after the Nationals meeting 2 weeks ago.  We felt we were starting to get somewhere, and that we were getting on top of the issues that have been hampering us this season (hope covered, this is going well , isn’t it).

In a fairly strong field, Jim qualified 3rd, giving him that starting spot for the first 2 heats.  In heat 1, Jim had some good pace, and finished in 4th.  We were fairly pleased with how things were going at this stage (joy done, I reckon you can spot the pattern now).

For heat 2, I decided to do some of my world famous mechanicking.  I’ve been on a bit of a role lately, so I’ve probably been getting a bit cocky, and it was time for the universe to put me back in my place.  Enter disappointment, as the pace disappeared from Jim’s kart and he dropped back to 6th during heat 2.  He was then involved in an incident while lapping another kart, and ended up in a gravel trap, ending his race (more disappointment).

While we had a bit of a break, I had the pleasure of watching one of the kids displaying how happy he was with karting.  I won’t mention his name (I know he’s reading), but unbeknownst to him I managed to capture the whole thing on video – watch it here: Riding the Bull (in all seriousness, it was great to see the kids having a good time and just enjoying themselves!)

Now, where was I up to?  That’s right, coldness.  It was cold.

In heat 3, Jimmy started from 7th.  There was an incident at the first corner that resulted in a couple of karts being put out of the race, and a few other karts spinning and falling to the back as a result of avoiding the incident.  Jim was one of the karts who spun, so he fell to the back of the field.  He chased hard, and managed to work his way back into 6th place.

The kart looked pretty good, and it hadn’t tried to injure me all night.  I was starting to think the evil spirit that haunted the kart (Christine, remember her?) had finally been exorcised and I could finally mechanick in safety (exorcism covered).  Well, that almost happened, see the score check below for more details…

Due to the late hour, the final was cut down to a smaller number of laps.  Jim started in 6th, and was in 5th early on.  He chased down 4th, got passed and had a fairly large gap to make up on 3rd.  He had a fair bit of pace, and managed to close the gap within a couple of laps, and then moved passed into third.  Unfortunately, 2nd was too far away, and Jim didn’t have enough laps to try and chase him down, so Jim had to settle for 3rd.

Thanks go out to Jim’s sponsor Iocane, and to CRG.  Jim would also like to thank his mum for all her support, and all the officials and volunteers.

As noted earlier, I thought we had achieved a sort of peace between myself and Christine.  Unfortunately, she disagreed.  While performing some maintenance on the kart today, she managed to somehow lob a bit of metal into my eye while I was drilling.  A really good effort, considering I had my safety goggles on.  Thankfully, it was only a really small bit, and came out quick, but I will award a point for the magical nature of her attack.

Current score: JP 1 (survived 2 weeks without hurting himself) – Christine 3 (Burn by exhaust, Degreasing of the eye, Magical Goggle Piercing Metal bit).