Ipswich Kart Club – Ipswich – 1/7/2016

Time for a (very long) road trip.

I don’t know whose dumb idea it was (I’m guessing it was mine), but we decided to drive to Queensland for Jim to compete in Round 4 of the National Series.  It was a nice easy drive, of over 2 thousand kilometres, and took us 2 days each way.  That turned a 3 day race meeting into an 8 day adventure.

I would really like to thank the states of Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales.  They managed to keep the immature person in me entertained by providing an endless stream of street and town names that sounded vaguely rude, eg:

– Boinka
– Wirrinya
– Elong Elong

(It must have been a long drive).

On to the racing.  Jim had never been to the track, so we had a fairly steep learning curve.  We had three official practice sessions on the Friday to learn the track and start to get some form of setup.

Unfortunately we didn’t get this right, and Jim ended up qualifying 29th out of 33 karts.  This made for a difficult weekend, as Jim would start the first 4 heats from near the back of the field.

Jim’s got off to a slow start in Heat 1, and worked his way up a few places, before being involved in some contact on lap 7.

He dropped to the back of the field, and finished the heat at the back.  Thanks to all those who showed concern, and I’ll answer the questions ordered by what was asked the most:

– Yes – The Kart was OK
– Yes – The Helmet was OK

(Both kids were OK and finished the race).

Heat 2 went a bit better.  Jim got off to a fairly good start, and had some reasonable pace.  Unfortunately, he lost 3 places in one corner (he got hung out to dry when a line of karts went through), but he managed to get a place or 2 back to finish in 26th.

In Heat 3, Jim got away to a pretty good start, and then drove really well to bring the kart home in 22nd.  He was starting to learn the track and get a bit quicker.

Now, this may not be the way it happened, but this is the way I remember it.  We brought the kart back to the pits after heat 3, and then music started playing (I believe it was ‘Eye of the Tiger’) and some of the most furious mechanicking in history was undertaken (you have to imagine it in movie montage form).  Settings were changed, tweakable things were tweaked, and we rummaged through people’s personal belongings looking for a couple of tenths.

In Heat 4, Jim got a reasonable start, and was in 26th after the first lap.  The kart had some speed (finally), and Jim started to make up places and work his way forward.  He got involved in a few battles, and managed to finish in 21st.

In the Final, Jim started in 28th, and dropped back to 29th after 5 laps.  The kart started to come one around then, and Jim started moving forward through the field, bringing the kart home in 24th.

Yet again, another great weekend of racing.  We learnt quite a bit, including how difficult it is to race at a track you have never been to before.  Jim got quicker as the weekend went on, and we also started to figure out what we need to do be more competitive earlier in the race heats.

Thanks go out to Jim’s sponsor Iocane, and to all the people at St George Kart Centre and CRG Australia.  Jim would also like to thank all the officials and volunteers, without whom we wouldn’t be able to race.