by Russell Innes, IKC
Racing action returns to Ipswich Kart Club on Saturday the 2nd of September with Round 7 of the IKC Championship which will have all the normal club championship classes on offer, plus Senior Rotax Light, DD2 and DD2 Masters all contesting the Qualifier event for the Rotax National Cup, plus the return of the 4SS Senior classes contesting the 3rd Round of their 4 Round Club Championship. TAG Light and TAG Heavy will be the Feature Classes and will be racing for the Graham Acreman Memorial perpetual trophies.
All classes will contest 3 Heats with Random Grid Draws and a Final with the feature classes, TAG Light and TAG Heavy having Qualifying and extra laps for their Heats and a 14 Lap Final.
This club round will be the last race meeting before the Queensland State Cup and the Rotax National Cup are contested at Ipswich at the end of September, so strong fields are expected across many classes with quite a few contestants travelling a long way to compete.
In KA3 Junior Light, Luke Rinaldi is a runaway championship leader at the moment, but will have some very strong competition from the likes of Jye Flynn, Ky Burke, Sebastian Bennett, Zack Hilder, Jack Szewzcuk, Tyson McGill, Isaac McNeill and Baxter Jarrett. Lucas Lesmes has a good lead in the KA3 Junior Heavy championship and will have strong competition this Round from the likes of Jackson Cooper, Dominic Penman, James Raaymakers, Charlotte Page, Cooper Friend and Tyson McGill. The small KA3 Senior field will be led by new Australian Champion Keegan Fraser with Max Chattin, Brieann Moyse, Emilee Ceccato, Talea Kiddle and Kristian Nguyen battling for the minor placings.
The Cadet 12 championship is a very tight battle between Alester Flack, Gabriel Elkayam and Brock Helm, but Basilo Micale, Lana Flack and Roman Krutil will also join them at the front in the battle for the round win. The Cadet 9 class championship is extremely close with Kenichi Morita, Riccardo Johnston, Jack Musico, Joshua Fabian, Ayrton Hobday and recently crowned Australian Champion Brock Nolan all very close at the top in points and they will be joined by the likes of Carter Grother, Oliver Flack and Lucas Loeskow to battle for the podium.
A very strong field will assemble for 4SS Junior, led by last Round winner Jaxon Duong with his main competition coming from Jett Saraghi. In the 4SS Senior classes, Darcy Briggs, Jordan Briggs, Troy Bowden and Andy Mann are strong chances in 4SS Senior Light, whilst Mark Walker will be the man to beat in 4SS Senior Medium.
Across the TAG Restricted classes, Jack Munro has been hard to beat in TAG restricted Light all year, but Jake Czislowski, Joshua Frew, Nathaniel Harrison and Riley Van Den Broek will throw out a challenge. TAG Restricted Masters has been a great class to watch at IKC this year and they have a bumper 28 kart field for this race meeting. Phil Smith, Gavin Soward, Mark D’Arcy, Gavin Whitmore, Noel Smyth, Evan Broughton and Kevin Johnston will once again battle for the round honours. Rudy Farkas, Michael Oro, Dylan Menz, Bradley McNaught, Bradley Cox and Zac King will be the likely frontrunners in TAG Restricted Medium.
Rotax Light will have a very strong field racing, with new Australian TAG Champion Harrison Hoey, joined by Brodie Norris, Brent Reading, Jack Webster, Marc Tulloch, Romeo Nasr and Jett Adamson all looking to challenge Hoey.
DD2 and DD2 Masters will race with Queensland Open Performance as a Group and debutant to the DD2 class Harrison Hoey, will be going up against Ryan Hughes and Jonathon Marcusson, whilst Scott Howard, Troy Bretherton, Terry Hanly and Scott Cleveland will battle out for DD2 Masters honours and the battle for top spot in Queensland Open Performance will be between Finlay Derry, Dan Hutchinson and Ty Spencer.
In the Feature Classes, multiple Australian X30 Champion Jace Matthews will be defending his TAG Light Title and trying to put his name on the Graham Acreman Memorial trophy again, but his main competition will come from Kayden Thompson, Jack Wells and Brodie Norris. In TAG Heavy, the man to beat all year has been Brock Plumb and his main competition may come from Brendan Nelson, Tyler Greenbury, Will Marshall and Christopher Williams.