Round 3 - Newcastle
posted 21th April 2007 Can turn a Series!!
Newcastle provides some of the best racing we’ve seen, it always does! It’s also a track that can turn a team’s solid championship to shit, and give another’s poor season a kick start.
Qualifying would be via three ten minute sessions dropping the slowest karts in each of the first two sessions. Finally the top ten karts would compete for top spot along with the order for the remaining nine.
When it got to the business end of qualifying the top ten would be separated by under a second. Road Runner after a faultless start to the season was chasing speed all day and only just squeezed into the top ten. Mariners making sure they’re never too far from the front in 9th. Dynamite ‘the pretend B graders’ leave the smoke their rivals qualifying in 8th outright. Streamline had been a little quiet lately, finding some form managing 7th with Full Noise 6th. EKA Racing and Able Door Services both with a solid start to the year qualified well in 5th and 4th respectively.
Fourplay have never been to far from the front lately finishing 3rd 1/100th of a second behind Stones Kartsport. Taking pole position was Intrepid Racing a team to watch out for on their way back from some bad luck early in the year.
Once the race started a number of karts raced fast and clean to the first hour. The top ten karts would pretty much remain together, although Road Runner didn’t have the pace on this occasion dropping back.
Buildline and Kinetic Buildline both in new chassis’ made ground a circulated with the top bunch. The big movers were Dynamite from the back of the field. TDF Racing, Mudguts and Allied 2 were also strong in the B division.
Intrepid, EKA, Able Door Services, Fourplay and XLR8 all pitted together within the first hour leaving Full Noise to lead. This would sort itself out later.
There were a number of teams who should have been competitive but experienced problems throughout the race. Centor King of Parts (very quick at Orange) with several issues, along with their team kart Team King of Parts. Kinetic Buildline’s new Phoenix looked impressive before getting a big shunt ruining its front end. Enforcer unfortunately with more front end dramas, such a shame after their good start to the season!
Stones Kartsport running extremely competitively throughout most of the event until they broke their chassis! EKA also had some unknown issue which would take them out of contention.
Havacrac quietly moving up through the field along with Grey Ghost! Mariners running within the top 10 so far looked threatening! Intrepid still appeared as though they were leading with Full Noise, Havacrac, Buildline, XLR8, and Fourplay in the shadows all within reach of taking victory.
At three quarter race distance 17 seconds covered the first five karts, with eight karts still on the lead lap. The finish was going to be a nail bitter, then again at this track who would expect any thing else! Intrepid get pinged for speeding in the pit lane and do a clutch sprocket in the last hour, lucky to end up a reasonable 13th and Fourplay with issues half an hour from the end also sending them further down the order.
The finish saw Full Noise with the help of a conservative strategy taking the win! On the same lap another amazing performance from Havacrac (who must surely be leading the B Championship) coming in 2nd beating Buildline to the finish by a mere 6/10ths of a second for 3rd. Mariners were only 12 seconds behind rewarded for a fast consistent effort all day with 4th place. In A grade XLR8 (I’m sure may now lead the Championship) were 5th followed by Grey Ghost and Streamline.
In B Grade TDF a beautifully executed race coming home 2nd, and Team Toynton back to form 3rd. Ya Gotta Wanna who have found some speed lately in 4th followed by Repsol.
To give you an idea of just how good (and close) the racing is some of the gaps between karts on the track other than the ones already mentioned at the end of the race were as follows:
Team Toynton (9th) behind Intrepid (8th) by 18 seconds who finished only 14 seconds behind Grey Ghost (7th)
GP Racing (15th) behind Fourplay (14th) by 12 seconds who were trailing Able Door Services (13th) by 15 second who finished behind Repsol Omega (12th) by only 8 seconds
Road Runner (21st) finished only 7 seconds behind EKA Racing.
If anyone is interested in any of the exciting rounds coming please call Justin Sydenham for details on how to get involved (0417) 330229
Justin Sydenham
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