Report & videos from Kev “the noise” Davies
Well what a day of racing at the unofficial Cadet World Titles & round 5 of the Ipswich Kart Club Championship. It was a day hotly contested by 150 competitors!
There was a fabulous Arrow x5 rolling chassis to be won in a random draw thanks to DPE Superstore. Two sets of tyres were were won also thanks to Paul Feeney Group and Molecule Cleaning Products were given out thanks to Molecule Australia!
- full results of the meeting HERE
So onto the chassis giveaway first and it was the TaG Light driver Ben Jurczak who won it! Pictured below with DPE Superstore representative Adam Mercer and the x5 Arrow
Moving onto our second winners of the day and it was young Cooper Crawford from the Crawford Motorsport team that won the set of tyres given out to a Cadet 9 driver. The winner of the second set of tyres was Charlie Bowen from the Cadet 12 class.
There were also giveaways from Molecule Australia and thanks to Colin Palmer for those. William Sharp was the happy recipient of a molecule sample pack amongst others.
Moving onto the racing and what a day it was. In the KA3 Senior class first of all, some very exciting racing throughout the day but hanging in there and getting himself third place was none other than the “blingy man” Dale Zimmerman. Coming home second after an epic battle was the Ash Prestige backed, Total lubricants sponsored Brieann Moyse, but it was the “turkey man” Lachlan Nichols who absolutely deserved the win in the final with a Stella drive, pulling away from Moyse in the last few laps.
TaG Restricted medium now and Andrew Gilliam was unstoppable all day and took a deserving win. Also uncatchable in second was the hard charging Gregory Hines finishing just 0.6 behind Gilliam in the final. From there down the placings could have been anyone’s and it was hard to know where to look with so many awesome battles on track, but in the final Angus “kimi” Mathers, having been turned around on lap one, fought hard and drove the wheels off the #3 RHQ backed kart to get back up to 6th. He very nearly caught Jason Smith who in turn was having his own on track battles with the two guys in front, they were the “Japanese samurai” as he’s known now Jumpei Morita & Scotty Cleveland. A late run from Scott saw him take the 3rd place on the grid. No podium picture for these boys there were off celebrating straight away!
In KA3 Junior it was close hard battles in the mid pack and right up to the podium places. Taking out a great 6th place having shown real speed throughout the day was “the bull rider” Brody Nunn. Just beating him into 5th by a short margin was the #66 of Ryan Newton. There was a gap to the next three but they could all have been covered with one blanket it was that close. Taking out 4th after an epic battle it was “the rock star” Brady Mitchell. Moving onto the podium positions and winner of that epic battle with the rockstar was “my favourite pikey” Oscar Comley who drove the wheels off the kart all day. Second however went to a hard charging “cool hand” Luke Pink who also got the fastest lap of the final a 50.280, but it was too little to late as another Masterclass of driving was handed down by “the hitman” Tommy Cooper who took a fantastic win!
(pic – Kev Davies)
4SS is next (the fun class) and we had a right royal RUMBLE! Gabriel Lowry, Rhys Kinder & Kev Davis fought it out for 5th 6th & 7th, but further up the field Colin Palmer (the Molecule Australia backed driver) looked to be set for his first podium after returning to sprint kart racing for the first time in two years, but he wasn’t to know the flying Ryan Bolton, and he was doing just that (flying)!! Gradually hunted him down and went through to third, whilst they had a ding dong battle it was “the Bird man” Scotty Pearce & the #95 Warspeed driver Hayden Nissen who cleared off into the distance to have a race long tussle that either one could have won. It was eventually decided two corners from the end when Scottie held off a late lunge from Hayden to take the win.
Next up and it was time for the first of the “unofficial world titles and Cadet 12s”. 25 karts battled it out for the win, with some drives of note all day. Special mention first to Alex Gardner who came home in 13th place after showing real podium contention speed but an incident in the final put him too far back to recover. Another special mention to “dashing” Dominique Attard all the way from Mackay who put his #89 kart on pole in the morning, looked really fast all day in the top 5 but bad luck in the final left him finishing in 12th.
5th & 6th place was eventually taken by Jacob Scott and Hayden Sell respectively. That was due to a weight infringement unfortunately for little Maddison Feather who absolutely deserved to finish in 4th where she did on track (but it wasn’t to be) so 4th place did in fact go to the Lismore driver Kayden Thompson, then it was another Lismore driver just pipping him to third, that being (Kyser) Kye Suffolk just finishing half a second clear off Thompson. The leading pair though of Platten & Wells cleared off into the distance while the rest battled it out. Eventually the fastest lap of the final & second place went Lachlan Platten leaving the Ormeau flyer “welzie” Jack Wells to take the win.
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Moving onto the Masters and yet again they gave us some fantastic racing with drama and excitement to the end. Special mention to Kev Castles who once again gave it a red hot go turning a little bit of fuel into a lot of noise! He came home 8th. Anthony Murphy was having all sort of things going on including a spin on the roll up lap in the final but eventually came home 7th. Paul Willmott battled hard with Gary Payne and they were 5th & 6th respectively.
Just in front of them both was Bill “jiffy” Miller but even Bill couldn’t stay with the front 3. Ashley Lester secured 3rd after hanging onto the front two until 1 lap to go and that left Virgulti & Straughney to fight it out for the win. It was exciting stuff and a last corner attempt at taking the win just proved unsuccessful for Peter Virgulti leaving a very deserving win to be taken by Phil Straughen.
TaG Restricted Light was a real mix in the heats but the cream rose to top and in 4th place in the final, a galant drive from the Castrol sponsored Harrison Stock who drove really well all day and just fell short of pace in the final. The first podium spot of third went to Jeremy Glover and that effort is more outstanding as he is still on his Ps! Liam Moyse came home second after battling for the lead in almost every race but it was the super quick Ashley Davis who once again triumphs over all those that tried, taking a 2 second win in the final.
Cadet 9 was next up and the second of the unofficial world cadet titles. This one was a ZCorse lockout on the podium but it has to be said there was some extraordinary racing right through the field from the little people who showed true grit and determination. Jackson Cooper would normally be right up at the pointy end but in this day had to settle for a lowly 12th place. Little Oceanne Colangelo, after a heat one roll over, came back to finish a fantastic 10th in a very competitive field. Mica LeMasurier also couldn’t quite go with the front pace and grabbed 5th place. Jake Santin tried to hold onto the front pack and eventually managed an excellent 4th, but as I said in the opening line, team ZCorse dominated the final and eventually it was Max Walton who got third just behind the first of the pocket rockets Jaxson Burns who came home second beaten only by his twin brother, the second of the pocket rockets Jenson Burns.
Next up was another combined class on the day of TaG Light & TaG Heavy.
First of all the TaG Light class was a very competitive affair with excellent driving across the board! Aaron Rabjones brought it home in 5th with Bailey Sagaidak just ahead of him in 4th. The first of the podium spots was taken by the very fast Ben Jurczak who just couldn’t stay with the front two in the last few laps although 3rd is still a great achievement! Second was the flying #99 Praga driver Dylan Rudd who hasn’t been in the open class for long and is really starting to find his feet here and getting more and more competitive. That left the Project X ace of Eryn Osborne to bring home the victory with some masterful driving and a well deserved win it was too, the new aero package on the JC kart working a treat!
In the Heavy class, the usual top dog of Ipswich, Rudy Farkas, couldn’t quite hang onto to those front three, getting himself 4th. Coming home third after being competitive all day was Jared Neinert. Eventually finishing just half a second in front of him was Christopher Williams with a great drive to second. But all hail the king of the day – returning to racing after a two year absence and it was Clem O’Mara who took the win and was a hand full all day mixing with the Light guys early on in almost every heat. Expect to see him again!
Finally, KA4 Junior was yet again a super competitive day of racing and we shouldn’t expect the same winners in his class because any one of the top ten is honestly capable of a win on their day. This day however can not go by without a mention for his first time in this class – Ethan Feather, who had to start the final from the back, got up to 5th with a few laps left but then unfortunately after a coming together had to retire. Another excellent drive from Harvey Pryce saw him improve yet again to an 8th place. The ever improving pair of Zane Rinaldi & Ryan Hadden finished 5th & 6th respectively, just in front of them and missing out on a podium by just under a second was the “Cooloola kid” Jack Munro. But the podium was a close battle all through the final, Oscar Target eventually grabbing 3rd just behind the hard charging Corsa Apparel driver Annabelle Rolfo who in finishing second was unable to stay with the pace in the last two laps of the man of the moment, the #57 of Kurtis Tennant taking the win with an awesome display of driving!
A very special mention at the end for a racer in the TaG Restricted Light class; Michael Tulloch-Facer, who’s father James passed away a week before this race.
The club held a minutes silence for his family at drivers brief, then also gave Michael the checkered flag to do a solo lap after his final after which he received a guard of honour salute back into the pits. My thoughts and the thoughts of all members were with Michael who chose to race during these sad times as he said because it’s what his dad would have wanted. Well done to Michael.
The lap of honour can be seen at the end of his TaG Restricted Light final
Kev “The Noise” Davies, Signing off!
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