Whyalla Vs Southern Interclub


by Chris Reid 30 July 2015

The Whyalla Kart Club has just held the first round of the Whyalla Kart Club VS Southern Kart Club inter club Challenge, bringing an end to an extremely hectic fortnight of Karting in Whyalla.

Two weeks ago, Simmonds Transport Whyalla presented the latest round of come and try sessions for the Whyalla Kart Club, with an amazing turn out from locals looking to have a go at Karting and also even a few members of the public who travelled from Port Augusta to come and have a try.

Straight after the Come and try day local club members were busy in the clean up and fix up duties of the working bee, to be able to get the track ready for the following weekend's inter club Challenge, Sponsored by Duluxe Australia and Inspirations Paint Whyalla.

32 drivers across the two clubs arrived at a very chilli track to begin the days Challenge. Ffirst class to hit the track was the Cadet 9 class, with three girls in this class of four drivers left young driver Ky Hubner heavily out numbered, however all day he continued to push his limits and his consistancey paid off gaining him a third place for the day, right out in front was one of SA’s lead Cadet 9 drivers young Jessica Fortanier, with four straight wins for the day. Jess dominated this class, but Cadence Florentinus and Lilly Reid provided all the battling entertainment. Lilly had two 2nds for the day Cadence had two 2nds for the day but unfortunately for Lilly her pit crew forgot to fit her transponder in heat one and lost all the points from one of her heats.

Next class out on the track was the Sportsman SA/Whyalla class, a gentlemans class here in Whyalla, six drivers made up this class and the lead drive out there was Darrol Jones taking four straight wins off the back of the last round in the wet, where Darrol failed to complete one heat. It was cold but dry, and Darrol found grip and pace at every turn, the surprise driver in this class making the most of every opportunity was Rob Butt who landed himself in second for the day, with a very strong drive in the final, and rounding out the top three was Jeremy Head with a strong start to the day but didn’t quite manage to finish as strong.

To the Cadet 12’s and the two boys up front were destined for a close battle all day, local driver Cooper Jones and Southern kart club driver Troy Fortanier  would provide the cat and mouse entertainment in this class with both boys sharing the lead throughout the day, however when it came to the chequered flag it was cooper who managed to see it first in all but one race to get him the points he needed to finish the day at the top of the podium, Troy was safely in second place on points and Brayden Stewart rounded out the top three, fourth place went to Sebastian Hubner.

Juniors combind classes for this round due to really low numbers once again, in the national lights class young Nathan Peters found form as is continuing to improve his pace every time he hits the track, in the National Heavy class the two boys Luke Clarke and Rame Lawson battled out their day doing everything they could to stay with Nathan in the Lights,  Luke is really beginning to build his pace out on the track and even managed in the final, to take the opportunity from an on track collision to break away from the group and finish in first place in front of Nathan in the lights class.

The two senior classes were combind for this meet, at the front of the pack the Restricted 125 light drivers then forming the rear of the field was the Restricted 125 heavy with 8 drivers in the lights and 7 in the heavies it made for a full field with plenty of bumper to bumper racing, out in the front of the lights we saw Southern kart club drivers Clint Smith and Daniel Boorman giving everything they had tussling with each other but right on their tail with a massive performance surprise with a mid week engine change we saw Whyalla club president Neil Schmidt move into the fast lane with a new ROTAX Jmax engine and from the first green light he stayed with the two lead drivers and saw dramatic lap time improvments, the only female out on the track in this class was Caroline Kadziela from Adelaide and she managed to secure fourth place for the day, third Neil Schmidt second place Daniel Boorman and Clint Smith took out the day.

Over in the heavies it was a little bit of push and shove in the first few laps as they started catching the slower of the light drivers, Scott Hubner got off to a great start in heat one but got caught up in an incident somewhere in heat two and Daniel Jones capitalized on the opportunity and took the heat two win, but heats three and four saw Scott regain his composure and finish out in front. Gary Owens, James Marsland, and Allan Watt all found the gravel traps at some stage throughout the day, which cost the big points, but Scott Haper kept it straight to collect third, Daniel Jones took second place and Scott Hubner in First.

With the up and coming Whyalla Show, the club would just like to say to every one that we will be there, and have a cool display setup and some awesome raffels to get some tickets in so please pop in and say hello.

We would also like to note that our Club AGM is fast approaching, it will be held on Monday the 31st at 7:30 pm at the Clubrooms.

 

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