Southern Star Series, Round 3
| by Ian Hobden (DKC) | 28 July 2013 |
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Round 3 of the Mia Powdercoating Southern Star Series was hosted by Dubbo Kart Club at Lincoln County Raceway on July 20th and 21st.
A massive field of 174 entrants made their way to the Dubbo facility from all over the state to fight it out for glory and series points. 27 competitors from Dubbo were joined by 37 from Canberra, 28 from Wagga, 21 from Griffith, 19 from Grenfell, 9 from Orange, 8 from North Shore, 7 from Wollongong and Newcastle, 4 from Combined Districts, 2 from Sapphire and 1 from Sydney, Coffs Harbour, Gunnedah, Manning and 1 from Eastern Lions Kart Club in Victoria.
The weather wreaked havoc with karters preparations with a heavy fog setting in on Saturday morning; a shower was forecast for around lunchtime on the Saturday however arrived early around 9am. The track was declared wet with racers scrambling to test out their wet setup during the 3hour practice session, a keen eye was kept on the skies, which cleared up prior to the start of the heats, and remained that way for the rest of the meeting. Karters battled it out over the 1037metres long international track with some fast and skillful racing right across all classes across the weekend. The meeting was scheduled to run over three 8 lap heats, a 12 lap prefinal and 15 lap final, however with some disappointing interruptions due to weather, stewards hearings and some track and timing issues the heats were reduced to 6 laps each with the prefinal and final being run over 10 laps.
In the Cadets class Cody Burcher (Orange) dominated the weekend claiming the top spot in Heat 1, and both finals to grab the top spot on the podium with Zachary Heard (North Shore) and Taylor Heard (North Shore) finishing 2nd and 3rd.
The Rookies class saw a great three-way battle over the weekend between Dubbo locals, Tyler Everingham and Blake Fardell batting it out with Grenfell local Thomas Sargent. Everingham managed to grab the top spot 4 points ahead of Fardell and Sargent who finished tied on points, Sargent claiming 2nd spot due to more race wins over the weekend.
Junior National Light was a heated affair over the weekend, however Cody Gillis (Wollongong) found the extra pace required and cruised home in the final to claim the top step of the podium with Canberra karters Zane Morse and Alec Morse finishing 2nd and 3rd.
Junior National Heavy was also a hard fought category with 21 entrants fighting it out, Cody Gillis made it 2 from 2 taking victory in the class with Dubbo local Nicholas Riley finishing 2nd ahead of Jarrod Whitty (Griffith). J-Max saw some good racing with some incredible driving from the young guns; Gus Flynn (Manning) took the honours ahead of Luke Scanu in 2nd and Zane Morse in 3rd.
The senior classes were just as hot as the juniors. Senior National Light and Heavy were run together with 17 karts on track. In the Light class Christopher Thomas (Wagga) finished 1st ahead of Kieran Doran (Wagga) in 2nd and Andrew Wass (Dubbo) in 3rd. Phillip Middleton (Combined) had a clean sweep of the Heavy class grabbing 1st in all heats and finals to finish ahead of Kurtis Dickson (Orange) and Braden Boots (Griffith).
Clubman Light and Superheavy were also run together seeing the finishing order in the Lights as Dean O’Brien (Dubbo) followed by Michael Riley (Dubbo) and Jackson Delamont (Grenfell). Clubman Superheavy was taken out by Canberra’s Bruce Otter ahead of Graham Winnel and Wesley Croft from Griffith. Again the biggest senior class was Clubman Heavy with 17 entrants, Dubbo local Chris Riley continued his good form grabbing the top spot, with follow Dubbo local Matthew Wray finishing 2nd ahead of David Waters (Coffs Harbour).
In the Sportsman 125 Restricted categories Michael Sieders (Combined) grabbed 1st ahead of Alexander Milward (Canberra) and Daniel Smith (Wollongong) in the Lights. The Heavys saw Matthew Whale (Dubbo) grab a clean sweep ahead of Gordon Gammie (North Shore) and Chris Wykes (Dubbo).
TAG 125 Light and Superheavy were also run together with Coire Donnelly (North Shore) claim honours in the lights ahead of Adrian Hogan and Adam Smith. Superheavy saw Eddie Ruiz (Grenfell) take the top spot from Nathan Jess (Canberra) and Peter Beeten (Canberra). TAG 125 Heavy was taken out by Canberra’s Robert Hogan ahead of Peter Whale (Dubbo) and Tony Woodward (Wagga).
Open Performance was run in two weight divisions of 175kg and 190kg, both weight divisions ran together with some great racing across the long track that allowed the DD2’s to really shine. Jackson Delamont added to his 3rd placing in Clubman Light taking out 1st in the 175kg division ahead of Shannon Mclaine (Newcastle) and Marc Townsend (Canberra). The 190kg category was comfortably taken out by Canberra’s Steven Martin with his crazy twin DD2 machine ahead of Brett Staples (Canberra) and Eddie Ruiz (Grenfell).
In addition to the awesome racing a number of track records were also beaten with Bruce Otter (Clubman Super Heavy), Marc Townsend (Open 175kg), Steven Martin (Open 190kg), Adrian Hogan (TAG125 Light), Robert Hogan (TAG125 Heavy) and Nathan Jess (TAG125 S/Heavy) setting new benchmarks in their classes for the Dubbo track.
Dubbo Kart Club and the Southern Star Series organizers hope that everyone enjoyed the weekend of racing. The next round of the Southern Start Series is to be hosted by Grenfell Kart Club at Bogolong Raceway in Grenfell on August 24th and 25th.
Dubbo Kart Club’s next meeting is the Australasian Karting Gold Cup to be held on August 17th and 18th.
