by Mark Wicks
The sixth and final round of the Golden Power Series concluded with a massive event at the Gippsland Go Kart Club last weekend.
Qualifying was full wet but the track dried enough for slicks part way through the opening round of heats and remained that way for pretty much the rest of the event.
The venue’s huge club room was used to run the GPS end-of-year prize giving in combination with a Saturday night roast dinner. Over 140 drivers received prizes from the series sponsors via random draw. Blair van Ree and Phil Stradbrook both won new karts (from Tecno & Parolin respectively) while Melanie Roberts won an IAME KA100 engine.
All up, 433 drivers scored points in the series. The provisional champions for 2022 are below (scroll down for the link to series points):
- Jai George (Cadet 12)
- Jensen Damashino (Cadet 9)
- Alexander Yoannidis (KA3 Junior)
- Zachary Thompson (KA3 Senior Light)
- Taine Venabales (KA3 Senior Medium)
- Grace Riddell (KA4 Junior Heavy)
- Samuel March (KA Junior Light)
- Nikola Schmidt (TaG 125 Heavy)
- Troy Alger (TaG 125 Light)
- Brett Jenkin (TaG Restricted Heavy)
- Gerry Westerveld (TaG Restricted Light)
- Clayton Groves (TaG Restricted Medium)
- Phillip Stradbrook (Vic Combined Masters)
- full results on speedhive HERE
- lots more photos – Stave Dansie Saturday album HERE, Sunday album HERE
- Tim Francis photos HERE
- Full series points can be viewed HERE
TaG Restricted Light (13 entries)
Gerry Westerveld took out the series with a solid result at Morwell, but was not able to win the final. Sebastian Perrone qualified fastest and Flynn Twyford won the (wet) first heat before Westerveld won the next two. Westerveld got into the lead at the start of the final over Perrone, but dropped to second on the last lap as Perrone DNFd moving Corey MacFarlane into P1.
1 Corey McFarlane
2 Gerry Westerveld
3 Aaron Imbach
KA3 Junior (19 entries)
Brodie Radford qualified pole and Amos Orr won the opening heat, but it was all Samuel March and Alexander Yoannidis from there in KA3 Junior. After a disastrous opening lap, Pip Casabene charged back to take third at the flag.
1 Alexander Yoannidis
2 Samuel March
3 Pip Casabene
Vic Combined Masters (9 entries)
Phillip Stradbrook came off the second row to be in the lead after lap one and went on to win the Vic Masters final by over 2 seconds. Mark Appleby was next, unlucky not to have won a heat when he hit the barriers while making a move for the lead in heat 2, which was won by Andrew Stubbs. Herman van Ree kept out of trouble for third while Ronald Taylor had earlier qualified fastest.
1 Phillip Stradbrook (X30)
2 Mark Appleby (KA100)
3 Herman van Ree (X30)
KA3 Senior Light (12 entries)
1 Jamie Rowe
2 Liam O’Donnell
3 Max Torcasio
Jamie Rowe ended up taking an unchallenged win in the final of KA3 Senior Light. Heat 1 winner Ashton Cattach led the opening laps before Rowe made the move and pulled away. Max Torcasio and Liam O’Donnell battled for second, O’Donnell setting some impressive lap times on the way. But he was never going to challenge Rowe who had already qualified fastest in the wet and won two heats in the dry.
Cadet 9 (10 entries)
1 Alana Gurney
2 Oliver Armitt
3 Levi Lord
Alana Gurney was the standout performer in Cadet 9. After qualifying her FA Kart on pole, she was undefeated for the rest of the meeting. In a couple of the heats, and after settling into a rhythm, Gurney drove away from the field. However, in the final, she came under fire, overtly blocking the passing line and backing the field up behind. Oliver Armitt, Levi Lord and Jordan Bantick were eventually joined in the battle by Jasper Partouche, Cooper Hickey, Jarvis Hindle (impressive on P-Plates) and Samuel Jansen van Vuuren (who grabbed fastest lap). But Gurney didn’t crack, fended them all off and took the win.
TaG 125 Heavy (4 entries)
advertisement
1 Nikola Schmidt
2 Dylan Muller
3 Liam Pollard
With a couple of drivers who had entered not able to get to the meeting, TaG Heavy was reduced to just four. There was plenty of hard driving (and a couple of offs!), but Nikola Schmidt was too good and took a clean sweep of the class, winning the final by over 7 seconds.
KA3 Senior Medium (14 entries)
1 Zach Findlay
2 Taine Venables
3 Braden Clark
As usual, plenty of close and entertaining racing in KA3 Senior Medium. Ethan Briggs qualified pole in the wet before local Bodhi Bright won the opening race. But heat two was a disaster for Bright, black flagged after his sidepod fell off while in contention for another win. Meanwhile, Zach Findlay got himself sorted to win the next two heats. That continued in the final with a small margin over Taine Venables (also going faster as the event progressed, fastest lap in the final) and top point scorer to that point, Braden Clark.
TaG Restricted Heavy (7 entries)
1 Brett Jenkin
2 Ryan van Ree
3 Brent Opie
It was Arrow karts one-two pretty much all meeting in TaG R Heavy, Brent Opie fastest in qualifying before Brett Jenkin took over and won all the races, though he had to get by Opie in the final. Ryan van Ree (LGK) progressively moved up positions in the final to take second.
KA4 Junior Light (12 entries)
1 William Thompson
2 Pip Casabene
3 Cooper Frith
It looked like Samuel March had done all the hard work in Junior Light – qualified pole, won all the heats and off P1 for the final. But then the Alpha driver was freight-trained back in the field on the opening lap, creating an opportunity for the rest. William Thompson, who’d placed second in all the heats, took the win over Pro Karting’s Pip Casabene and Cooper Frith. March put in a great comeback drive to fourth ahead of Joanne Ciconte who clocked fastest lap.
TaG Restricted Medium (13 entries)
1 Michael Powell
2 Blair van Ree
3 Scott Roberts
Another clean sweep class, Michael Powell holding P1 all the way and winning the final by over eight seconds from the consistent Blair van Ree. Qualifying 10th and moving forward all weekend, Scott Roberts was third.
KA4 Junior Heavy (20 entries)
1 Isabel Rowe
2 Ryan Wyhoon
3 Darsyn Harris
Darsyn Harris set fast time in qualifying and won the opening two heats in Junior Heavy. However, things went pear shaped in heat three, crashing out of the lead with Grace Riddell, allowing Isabel Rowe to score the win. Starting off pole, Rowe wrestled the lead from Harris in the final, heading home team mate Ryan Wyhoon with Harris just tenths behind.
Cadet 12 (21 entries)
1 Lucas Costanzo
2 Max Mangano
3 Gustuv Egdal
Fastest in qualifying and winner of all the heat races, Jai George was looking to end the round with a clean sweep in Cadet 12. But that’s not how it went. George got swamped at the start as Max Mangano jumped to P1 from the second row. There were plenty of ups and downs behind as Max maintained the lead, but despite setting fastest lap, Mangano couldn’t keep Lucas Constanzo behind in the final tour. Gustav Egdal had progressively moved forward to take third with George right behind, the top four covered by less than 2 seconds.
TaG 125 Light (18 entries)
Drizzle on the grid for the final had karts on and off trollies until the last minute, some fitting wets, others going back to slicks and some not flinching. After two heat wins, Marcus Fraser was off pole ahead of Will Harper and heat 2 winner (and fastest qualifier) Curt Sera. Harper jumped into the lead over Fraser as the field went a little crazy behind, those on wets trying to make places amongst the sliding slick-shod karts. Out front however, Harper (on slicks) kept his cool and gapped the field, dragging Thomas Hughes with him. Local Sam Downing dropped a bunch of places on lap one, but charged back through the field to second place.
1 Will Harper
2 Samuel Downing
3 Thomas Hughes
advertisement