25th Running of Lismore Young Guns

from Lismore Kart Club

Well done to Lismore Kart Club for another great “Young Guns Titles” held on 24/25 July which was the event’s 25^th anniversary and the premier junior karting race weekend in Northern NSW.

Competitors travelled from across NSW (Covid safe areas), the ACT and Queensland to take on the locals at the Lismore “Home of Champions” Race Track.

The event had a massive prize pool from the generous sponsors including tyres, engine boxes and kart gloves for the winners and podium places as well as a new Energy Corse Chassis as the major raffle prize. The Young Guns event had a P Plater only race and they kicked off the racing promptly on Saturday morning.

• full results on speedhive HERE

Novice/Rookie P’s

The newbies into karting and typically less than a handful of races under their belt, this category gave the youngsters a chance to battle it out for the same prizes and trophies as the other classes without the pressure of the more experienced kids on the track.  Hunter Boulton qualified in pole position in the Novice P’s and had a few battles with Harry Beeton in the heats and pre-final to take the win in the final with Harry 2^nd, Curt McPherson 3^rd and Orlando Raso 4^th.  

Xavier Raso dominated the weekend in his races to win the Final from start to finish in the Rookie P’s with Cooper Horwell less than 1 second behind him in second place. Both Xavier and Cooper cracked the 34.9 lap time pushing each other the entire race. Cooper Field also recorded his best lap time in the final to finish 3^rd with Jai Disson crossing the finish line in 4^th place. Great driving by all of them and hopefully we’ll see them back for Young Guns next year.

Rookie P
1 Xavier Raso (Qld)
2 Cooper Horwell (Qld)
3 Cooper field (NSW)

Novice P
1 Hunter Boulton (NSW)
2 Harry Beeton (Qld)
3 Curt McPherson (NSW)

Rookies

The Rookie class was next up and set the stage for some close racing between the locals of Kobi Preston, Declan Hicks, Joel Lammers and James Cittolin taking on the visitors of Logan Lalas, Ruben Dan, Jack Bartlett and Luke Wilson (LKC member) from Queensland. Preston snatched pole position in the closing stages of the qualifying session with Wilson securing P2 and Lammers in P3. The other drivers were still getting acquainted with the track in the slippery morning conditions after the overnight rain.

The heats provided some tough but fair racing to determine the grid order for the Sunday Pre-Final, where Cittolin went from P5 to P2 going into the hairpin on the first lap to hold onto 2^nd place over Kobi in 3^rd place. Joel Lammers had his kart on rails to record a lap time of 33.6, winning the Pre-Final by almost 8 seconds.

The Final was another action packed opening few laps with Wilson making his way up to P2 after battling with Cittolin and Bartlett up the hill going into the elbow, however both James & Jack later retired from the race with mechanical issues. Joel drove away with the win with an impressive margin followed by Kobi in 2^nd, Ruben in 3^rd, Logan 4^th and Wilson 5^th. Declan stayed out of trouble to bring his kart home in 6^th place.

1 Joel Lammers (NSW)
2 Kobi Preston (NSW)
3 Ruben Dan (NSW)

Novice

The Novice Class was another hotly contested event with Gabriel Elkayam qualifying pole over Travis Dhu and Riley Grande in P2 & P3 with 0.017 seconds between the 3 of them. Charlie Hogan was slightly off the pace in P4 with Max & Portia Rollen improving in position P5 & P6 and Aston Dendle in P7 to start the 12 lap heat races. Travis battled for the win in Heat 1 over Gabriel in 2^nd place with Max bringing it home in a clean race in 3^rd place. Riley then got into the action to win both Heats 2 & 3 which placed him in P1 starting position for the Pre-Final with Travis in P2 and Gabriel & Max Rollen starting the final from the 2nd row.

The start of the Final was electric with Gabriel wasting no time to take P1 on the first lap to leave the local trio of Dhu, Grande & Hogan battle it out for the podium places. Gabriel breezed home with a comfortable win from Travis in 2^nd place holding Riley out in 3^rd Place. Trophies to 5^th place saw Charlie (4^th) and Max (5^th) share the stage at the presentation to thank their parents and sponsors in their appreciation speeches.  

1 Gabriel Elkayam (Qld)
2 Travis Dhu (NSW)
3 Riley Grande (NSW)

MiniMax / MicroMax

With the interest in the KNSW Minimax Class growing, it was great to see some new faces take to the track for the first time with shiny new Rotax engines. Light hands and smooth cornering is key to fast lap times around Lismore and the entire field displayed their skills with some impressive driving to be around 1 second per lap quicker than the Rookie Class.

With less than 0.2 seconds between the top 5 in the Qualifying Session, it was going to come down to consistent lap times to get ahead in the heats. Joel Lammers lead the pack all weekend to take wins in the heats, Pre-Final and Final, however Jack Bartlett found pace on Sunday to match Joel’s lap times in the Final to cross the finish line in a well deserved 2^nd place. Logan Lalas was consistent all weekend to pick up 3^rd place in the Final with Ruben Dan in 4^th. Kobi Preston made a small error in the Pre-Final to start and finish the Final in P5. Declan Hicks improved each race over the weekend to hit a Personal Best time of 33.7 seconds in the Final, crossing the line in P6. Travis Dhu and Riley Grande also joined the field as Micromax entrants to refine their skills and lap times with Dhu taking wins in all races with Riley not far behind in 2^nd position.

Mini Max
1 Joel Lammers (NSW)
2 Jack Bartlett (NSW)
3 Logan Lalas (NSW)

Micro MAX
1 Travis Dhu (NSW)
2 Riley Grande (NSW)

Junior Light

The racing in Junior Light proved to be fast & furious with many previous Young Gun Rookies now in the quicker 13-16 age category. The NSW contingent of Kayden Thompson, Jett Kubelka and Byron Burns were going to have their hands full to battle the Banana Benders of Brodie Norris, Jack Beeton, Luke Trost, Oliver Rogers and Jackson Morrissey. Norris provided the benchmark in the Qualifying session and Heat 1 to be the quickest and take the first win on Saturday morning. Beeton then had his Energy kart flying to take the win in heats 2 and was looking impressive to win heat 3 by over 3 seconds.

Thompson & Kubelka regrouped on Sunday morning to continue the fight with Thompson getting up to 2^nd place during the Pre-Final before crashing out at turn 1, Kubelka finishing in 3^rd place.  It was anyone’s race in the 18 lap Final, however Norris came under early pressure from the tag team of Beeton and Trost in the opening lap going from P1 to P4 with Beeton taking the lead and pulling a small gap from Trost in P2. It was hammer-time for Thompson starting from the back of the grid who caught up with the leaders mid-race. With 6 laps to go, Trost started to apply pressure to Beeton to take the lead and cross the finish line with an impressive win. Beeton finished in P2, followed by Norris, Thompson, Kubelka, Burns, Rogers and Morrissey.

1 Luke Trost (Qld)
2 Jack Beeton (Qld)
3 Brodie Norris (Qld)

Junior Performance & J Max

Unfortunately there wasn’t the entry numbers to provide a challenge for Braith Santin in Rotax Junior Max however Braith recorded the quickest time of the weekend around the Lismore Track in 31.1 seconds, which was over 1 second faster than the senior TAG restricted Light/Heavy supporting class. For his efforts Braith won a driving experience in a Formula Ford provided by one of the many sponsors of the Lismore Young Guns.

Junior Performance had Brodie Norris and Max Gommers join Braith on the track for a speed challenge demonstration, although the Junior performance engines were not able to match the speed of the Rotax, Brodie & Max enjoyed the weekend finishing 1^st & 2^nd respectively in their class.  

Support Classes

TaG Restricted Light
1 Elliott Thompson (NSW)
2 Martin Hollings (NSW)
3 Callum Gluyas (NSW)

TaG Restricted Heavy
1 Joshua Herne (NSW)
2 Jamie Gluyas (NSW)
3 Juston Beeton (Qld)

Presentations Video: