Day 1 Washout Can't Dampen Carnival of Karts
| from Sean Phillips | 27 May 2016 |
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The Tiger Kart Club's Carnival of Karts always puts on a show and this year was no exception with first day’s racing hit by one of the biggest storm fronts to ever hit Perth forcing the cancellation of racing due to 100kmh winds and huge rain storms. Two large trees fell on the track and many pit area marquees were destroyed making things just too dangerous to race with the club taking the hard but correct decision to call off racing and push the event through to Sunday.
- full results are on CMS HERE
Above: Daniel Currey, here holding out Simon Gwilliam (21) and Peter Newland, won the FMA WA KZ2 series round that was part of the Carnival of Karts meeting
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Brad Mitchell Photography
Above & Below: Remains of what is now an internally air-cooled Formula 100 engine! The carby/reed block was blown right off the front of the engine, slightly injuring driver Darren Burke
In complete opposite to Saturday’s storm, Sunday’s weather turned out perfect with blue sky’s for most of the day and the club pushed through with qualifications, a heat race, pre finals and finals to make up for most of the racing lost on Saturday.
Huge thanks to the stewards and officials on the day who ran the program with amazing efficiency and also a big thanks to all the drivers who gridded up on time ready to go with clean racing all day and no red flags or hold ups. It’s quite amazing how quickly things can progress on a race day when everyone works together to get things done!!
235 entries in 12 classes made for some huge fields and awesome racing with the Cockburn track looking spectacular after all work put in to ensure the facilities were top notch for the weekend.
Above: KA4 Junior Light 1st place went to Jake Sawyer
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Brad Mitchell Photography
A great crowd turned out and as with every Carnival the club had a printed race program for them to follow the racing and explain to first time spectators what karting is all about.
WA’s top drivers had the chance to race against Australia’s best in TAG 125 Light with Pierce Lehane and Sportsman KA-3 Pro with Dave Sera and it was great to see these guys racing again in WA. In the finals both Dave and Peirce took the wins in an awesome display around the 1070Mtr track.
Above: David Sera won Sportsman/KA3
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Brad Mitchell Photography
Sam Dicker came of age at this meeting running right with Dave in the heats and finals to celebrate a well deserved 2nd place along with a top drive from Ben Harders taking 3rd with all 3 drivers sharing in the $2000 prize money up for grabs in this class.
In what had been a massive build up to the meeting the highly anticipated battle between Kip Foster and Dave Sera was building up all day with Kip taking wins in the heats and pre final only to run wide at the start of the final dropping to 5th and then spun around by another driver a few laps later to be ROF in the 24 kart field. To Kip’s credit he continued to circulate and push hard gaining many places back but with the front guys more than ½ a lap ahead by that stage a win was not going to be on the cards unfortunately.
Above: TaG Light winner Pierce Lehane
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Brad Mitchell Photography
Peirce Lehane was awesome with pole and wins in all his races including the final by a long margin, a feat made even more spectacular as it was against 2 of WA’s very best drivers in Darren Burke and Adam Levi. The combination of Peirce’s driving skills his CRG kart and new PRD Galaxy engine proved to be unbeatable all weekend.
Other winners on the day were Thomas Bowsher in TAG R 125 Light, Jake Sawyer in KA-4 Jnr Light, James Micucci-Allen in Cadet 9 and Mathew Randell in TAG R 125 Heavy. A fine win by Jackson Timmer in KA-3 Jnr along with Tyler Peel in Open Class where 17 fire breathing monsters took to the track for some high speed action.
Above: KA3 Junior winner Jakson Timmer leading Damon Papasergio
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Brad Mitchell Photography
Darren Burke in Open Class racing a F100 kart had one of the most spectacular blow ups ever seen with a con rod cutting loose at 18,000RPM sending shrapnel into the air and unfortunately into Darren’s arm where some concerns for his safety were held while he was attended to on the side of the track. Thankfully he was Ok apart from some bruising unlike his engine where even the carburettor and reed block were blown completely off the engine and a track clean up was required to remove engine parts from the circuit before the next race could commence!!!
Luca Nici is now proving to be the one to beat in Cadet 12 with another fine win over some very stiff competition from Jett DeMarte and Caleb Sumich. Bartholomew Horsten controlled the KA-4 Jnr Heavy class in fine style from the front all day to take a solid win as well.
Jake Burton drove like a future star in TAG 125 Heavy winning the final over Thomas McPherson and Robert Hooper. All 3 drivers are only recently out of the Jnr class and certainly proved themselves as the new force in TAG 125 Heavy over the weekend.
Above: Jake Burton, 1st in TaG Heavy
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Brad Mitchell Photography
The super professional KZ-2 FMA series one again took centre stage at the Carnival with Daniel Curry, Simon Gwilliam and Jake Klarich taking the top 3 spots after a stamina testing final against some very high class machines and drivers.
As with any meeting of this size and where we get to give away over $12,000 in cash and prizes a HUGE thanks must go to our sponsors in particular our naming rights sponsor Arise Racing and as always Kart Mart and REMO racing who supported us with the IAME X-30 and KA-100 engines we gave away during presentations.
Above: Cadet 12 winner Luca Nici
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Brad Mitchell Photography
Big thanks also to the officials and volunteers who ran everything from the out grid to the canteen under immense pressure from losing a whole day of racing but they completed the event like clockwork so everyone had a great weekend and lots of racing action.
The next major meeting for the Tiger Kart Club is the WA state titles later in the year at our Wanneroo track so it’s back into the hard work for what will be a very busy 2016 for our dedicated committee and volunteers.
Above: KA4 Junior Heavy winner Bartholomew Horsten
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Brad Mitchell Photography
