2017 – Rotax Pro Tour – Round 4

Written By :

jpp

Category :

Karting

Posted On :

20/06/2017

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Coffs Harbour Kart Racing Club – 16/6/2017 to 18/6/2017

Jim and I were looking forward to going to Coffs Harbour for a few reasons:

  1. It was a 20 hour drive to get to the track.  Trust me though, it sounds more fun than it was.
  2. Jim has been having a bit of bad luck lately, and it was a 20 hour drive to get there.
  3. The race meeting held on the previous weekend at Coffs Harbour was cancelled due to a large amount of rain, and it was a 20 hour drive to get there.
  4. For those of you that aren’t aware, it’s a 20 hour drive from Adelaide to Coffs Harbour.

So we packed up and drove to Coffs Harbour.  When we got there, it wasn’t raining and the weather was quite nice (but you know how Jim’s luck has been).

Here is a photo of the Rotax Pro Tour Logo. Most of my other photos aren't very good...
Here is a photo of the Rotax Pro Tour Logo. Most of my other photos aren’t very good… I’ll explain later…

Jim did reasonably well in practice considering he had never seen the track before.  His pace was around the 6th to 8th mark.

For something different, qualifying was held on the Friday afternoon.  Jim did pretty well, qualifying in 6th spot.

We woke up on Saturday to rain.  It was a good thing I spent that 4 hours on Friday night wrangling one of his wet tyres onto a rim – stupid tyre wouldn’t pop and seat on the bead –  because we were about to spend the entire day racing in wet conditions.

The best picture I could get on Saturday. It was a bit wet.  It’s also a stock photo, as I didn’t get my phone out because it was too wet, and I forgot to take photos.

Jim had a reasonable heat 1 – Dropping back a couple of places after coming off at the start, then working his way back to 8th.  He was going OK in heat 2, until he came off again, finishing in 10th.

In Heat 3, Jim got a pretty good start, but yet again, he came off in the wet and ended up finishing 13th.

I think if you squint hard enough, you can see that I copied this photo from Google.
I think if you squint hard enough, you can see that I copied this photo from Google.  But you get the idea it was wet.

In the Prefinal we managed to get the kart pretty well set up, but Jim had to avoid another kid spinning on the first lap and dropped back to 15th.  He eventually worked his way back to 9th.

For the final on Sunday morning the track was dry, but still slippery – and treacherous if you went too far offline.  Jim drove fairly consistently, and was rewarded with a 4th place finish after a couple of other competitors went off the track in the challenging conditions.

Jim would like to thank Iocane, WIFA Racing, EvoKart Australia, and his mum and sister for all their support.  Thanks also to all the officials and volunteers who worked out in the rain, without whom Jim couldn’t race.

Christine was well behaved on the weekend.  I did cut my hand changing a sprocket on Friday, and some of the blood landed on the kart.  This does lend some weight to my theory that Christine is a particularly blood thirsty spirit, and more pain will be required on my behalf to keep her in check in the future.

The current score:

JP -> 3 (Survived 2 weeks without hurting himself, use of Angle Grinder Persuasion, Ancient Spirit Mumbo Jumbo)

Christine -> 8 (Burn by exhaust, Degreasing of the eye, Magical Goggle Piercing Metal bit, Special Combo, Epidermal Peel, Degrease, Rinse, Repeat, 98 Octane Eye Wash, Inappropriate Tool Grabbing).