Stevens Ready For Australian Superkart Champs Opening Round

press release

In last year's final round at Eastern Creek Raceway, Australian Superkart racer Anton Stevens left the track in an ambulance.  On July 13, with no lasting effects from his season-ending accident and with a rebuilt car, he hopes to leave with a podium finish.

Since last year's spectacular crash (above) in which he escaped serious injury, "consistency has been a problem," Stevens said, "mainly because we're trying to stick together all of the old equipment and make it go as good as it did prior to the accident.  We are aware of the consistency issue and taking massive steps to overcome that, almost to the extent of a complete new engine, or at least a majority of the parts replaced.  We believe we are on top of that, but we definitely can't say we are out of the woods yet until the race starts and the flag drops.  But at this stage we are looking good."

Stevens' car has been rebuilt with the same engine, re-straightened chassis and restored bodywork - "amazingly, when you consider what it went through," he said.  While the engine has gone through a major internal rebuild, the external parts remain the same, complete with what Stevens called "a bit of a war wound" left from the engine's contact with the ground in last season's crash.

With such a large entry for the Eastern Creek opening round, some 44 racing karts, 29 of them the outright 250 International class, the meeting is sure to be fiercly contested. Eastern Creek is the home track though for the two most recent national champions, Warren McIlveen and Sam Zavaglia, but Stevens said he and the team are hoping to match them.  "We're very confident we'll be in the top three," he said.  "That's something we've always strived for.  We're a very competitive team, and we've come this far.  We don't want to give it up here.  We definitely have unfinished business at the front."

Stevens will have no time to rest before confronting the unfinished business that awaits him.  Though his effort to qualify for the Olympics in his other sport of taekwondo were derailed by the final-round crash, the New Zealander is fighting for Australia in the Korean Open, which serves as an Olympic warmup for competitors going on to Beijing.  Stevens will go straight from the airport to the track upon his return.

Stevens' racing team is proudly supported by Electroseal, Arch Motor Sport, Cisco Race Engines and Rockett Race Engines.

The opening round of the Australian Superkart Championship will be held over the July 12-13 weekend at Sydney's Eastern Creek International Raceway as part of Round 5 of the Shannons Nationals Motor Racing Championships and will continue into November when the series will conclude at South Australia's Mallala Motor Sport Park. With 44 karts entered for the opening round Superkarts boast the grid entry of any Australian circuit racing championship. The series brings together teams from New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and New Zealand over an eight race series, utilising specialist superkart racing chassis produced in Europe, America and Australia.

Home