Aiden Schweikert has had a busy start to season 2022 and took on his biggest challenge of the year over the weekend.
Schweikert took on the opening round of the SP Tools Australian Kart Championship. Schweikert has just joined the successful David Sera Kart class operation and was looking to have a strong weekend. Schweikert had two days of practice and was on the back foot early with an incident on Thursday resulting in plenty of damage and having the team on the back foot.
Aiden looked to qualifying to try and get as far up the grid as possible. The Link Airways backed entry was in a quality field of thirty six drivers and had his work cut out for him. Aiden made his way into the top twenty and was continuing to improve as the session went on. Schweikert dug deep and managed to get himself in the top fifteen with the thirteenth quickest time of the session!
Heat one came around and Schweikert got a great start, settling in fourteenth position at the end of the opening lap. The G & L Motor Repairs and Performance backed entry moved his way up to position twelve and was pushing hard to get inside the top ten of the field. Aiden’s race unfortunately had a turn for the worse with an incident in the middle of the race putting him to the back of the field. Schweikert made a few spots back up and was classified in a disappointing position thirty one.
Aiden was trying to move on from the disappointment of heat one and look forward to heat two. Schweikert got another clean get away and slotted into position thirteen and was once again looking to move forward. The EPM sponsored entry was shuffled back in the hard racing to position seventeen in the middle stages and was determined to try fight back. Aiden moved back into position sixteen but had the battle to hold the spot. In an improved performance from heat one Schweikert crossed the line in position seventeen!
Aiden was starting outside the top twenty five in heat three due to the results of his opening heat. Scweikert was straight up to position twenty three on the opening lap and was looking to make his way forward through the field. The Haley Hire backed entry continued to move forward as the heat went on and made his way back into the top twenty. Aiden ended his Saturday by crossing the line in position nineteen and brought to an end a disappointing day by Aiden and his dad Justin’s standards.
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Heat four was first on Sunday morning for Aiden and the young driver along with his dad were looking to finish the weekend on a positive. The Kart Class backed entry made his way up multiple spots in the opening few laps. Unfortunately, Schwikert’s bad luck had followed him into Sunday and he was involved in an incident resulting in a DNF result.
After a tough weekend, Schweikert was looking to go all or nothing and as far forward as possible in the final. Starting out of position thirty one Aiden had a lighting opening lap moving up nine spots and into position twenty two overall. The Parolin kart was working well in the final and Aiden continued to move forward as the race went on. In one of the highlights of Aiden’s weekend the young driver was able to come away with position seventeen overall moving up over ten spots in the final.
Aiden’s father Justin spoke post weekend of the result of his final and weekend. “We decided on Sunday that no matter what we would end the weekend positively and that’s what we did. Aiden kept his chin up throughout and we will go back to the drawing board to understand where we were behind but we learnt a lot about how to get through a tough weekend. We will be back stronger than ever at the next round”.
Schweikert looks to the next round of the championship to try and bounce back!
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