Ashton Cattach continued his preparation for the Australian Kart Championship competing in the shakedown meeting over the weekend at the Eastern Lions Kart Club. After a short covid enforced break, Ashton was competing in a combined KA3 Senior Light and KA3 Senior Medium field with twenty drivers hitting the track.
A wet qualifying was the starting point for the senior driver. In wet and greasy conditions Cattach hit the circuit and was battling around the edge of the top ten in the high caliber field. The Ringwood Kart Centre backed entry made his way into the top ten and pushed harder to set a fastest lap. Ashton was able to get a time to put himself in eighth position overall in the twenty-kart field for the first heat.
Cattach achieved a strong start in the opening heat, moving to seventh position. Unfortunately, while battling for position seven and eight the Luscombe Automotive sponsored entry was involved in an incident and went to the rear of the field. Ashton crossed the line in position sixteen and looked to heat two.
Cattach had a clean start but dropped a couple of spots back to the edge of the top ten. Ashton made a move on lap four to go back up to ninth position and put his head down. The Ringwood Kart Centre sponsored entry came home in position nine setting strong lap speed.
Cattach started out of position thirteen for heat three and jumped up to position eleven off the start. The Luscombe Automotive entry made his way inside the top ten by lap two and position ten was the highest he could jump to by heats end.
Ashton was out of position twelve for the final and was looking to make up as many spots as possible. Cattach had an electric start, moving straight up to position nine on the opening lap. By lap five after a couple of battles Ashton had made his way into position eight. The Ringwood Kart Centre backed driver came home in position eight overall setting laps fast enough to be inside the top five.
Ashton’s mother Cin spoke of the bad start of to the day but a great recovery. “Ashton showed improved effort again towards the nationals. Heat one didn’t go our way but we are happy with his progress and look forward to getting back here”.
Cattach will look now to his next month of racing to grab some strong results.