The 2017 Retro Karting Australia F100 Cup for Light and Heavy was raced at Stony Creek in Victoria on Saturday.
The meeting was the third and final round in RKA’s F100 National series. An impressive 40 Formula 100 drivers had entered (20 Lights and 20 Heavies – last year was 13 and 15 respectively), mostly from Victoria but many interstaters as well.
Held in cold and sometimes wet conditions, getting tyres to ‘switch on’ was a real issue. In fact, on a track that appeared mostly dry for the pre-final and finals, those using wets never chewed up their rubber. Of those using slicks, it was only the drivers who really worked the kart hard who could generate some temperature to throw a challenge for the lead.
Top 3 results and race wraps are below. Full results on MyLaps HERE.
F100 Light
1 Mars Gheorghiu (Monaco)
2 Jace Lindsrom (CRG)
3 Paul Kendall (Top Kart)
Last year’s winner Jason Pringle qualified fastest in the wet ahead of Matt Wall (“I just love the layouts of these country tracks”). Jace Lindstrom and Stony Creek regular Toby Clifton.
Wall then carded wins in both heats and the pre-final.
For the final, more drivers fitted slicks. Wall led Lindstrom off the start, but couldn’t get the kart to bite, then faded with brakes issues. Lindstrom (slicks) enjoyed a gap to the rest, however Mars Gheorghiu (wets) came through, got by Lindstrom and pulled away. Further back Jason Pringle (started P10 on slicks) was moving forward, eventually catching Gheorghiu and setting fastest lap to get into the lead. But a lap and a half to go, Pringle spun the kart into retirement. Gheorghiu took a 12 second win over Jace Lindstrom with Paul Kendall enjoying his best result of the day in 3rd (from P11)
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F100 Heavy
1 Barry Ryan
2 Paul McKinnon (Mike Wilson)
3 Rick Pringle (CRG)
The talking point for Heavies was the same as Lights – tyres; slicks or wets?
Front row starters Patrick Parry (pole) and Rick Pringle elected slicks. Row 2 starters Barry Ryan and Paul McKinnon stayed on wets. Wets won.
Parry just couldn’t get his kart to turn and quickly fell back as Ryan and McKinnon moved to the front. It was a fairly straight forward race for the two, Ryan winning by 2.2s over McKinnon. Rick Pringle was charging towards the end, pulling up just a couple of tenths short of McKinnon, whose 2nd place gave hims the series win for Heavy.
Pringle had earlier qualified pole and won the opening heat. Ryan won heat 2 while Parry killed ’em in the pre-final taking a 7.9s win.
TaG 125 Support class
1 Jordie Lindstrom
2 James Dean
3 Kurt Woodward
A decent number of starters were expected in the TaG Light and Heavy support classes, however with the locals racing a club meet the following day, most of them decided to stay home! James Dean won the heats and pre-final ahead of fastest qualifier Jordie Lindstrom, but in the final, the Formula K driver struck back for the win.
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