With all that has been with COVID, the TEKA fraternity has been chewing at the bit to get back on track and round 1 for the 2022 season was back at what some think to be the spiritual home of TEKA, the Newcastle Kart Racing Club track at Cameron Park.
Rocking up to the track on Friday for a full day of practice was like the first day at school. Whose going to be quick, what are the new driver line-up’s, whose got new gear, who are the new teams and most importantly… who is going to be fast?
As is the case at the start of each new season, the TEKA fraternity has lifted the game on multiple fronts. New teams, new combinations and even a new chassis manufacturer has joined the ranks.
With the TEKA committee pulling out all the stops with new promotional gear, it’s the norm now for TEKA teams to turn up with supercars quality custom suits and custom liveries promoting growing sponsors and partners to the teams and series.
The quality of some of the team’s presentation in TEKA now is seriously first class and they need to be commended for their efforts. Testament the quality and presentation of the field TEKA was also fortunate to have CROSSMULLER jump on board as a round sponsor for season one. CROSSMULLER are an end-to-end engineering company working across a broad sector of industries. Check them out at www.crossmuller.com.au or be sure to go have a chat to Ben Lamb and the boys in kart #90.
Weather forecast for Saturday was for potential showers and while it was overcast, it thankfully stayed dry.
Once official practice session was underway all systems and timing were tested, teams were getting set up for F1 style qualy and then the first race of the season on what turned out to be gripped up conditions at the NKRC track.
First of the three elimination qualy sessions
1st – #33 Unifilter at the top of the tree with a 54.625
2nd – #54 JOKER Endurance Team | TRAKKA with a 54.932
3rd – #27 Buildline Dynamite Racing with a 55.111
Second elimination sessions results
1st – #81 YELLO Racing at the top 54.775
2nd – #54 JOKER Endurance Team | TRAKKA with a 54.830
3rd – #15 YELLO Racing with a 54.876
Making it into the final session for the Top 10 shootout
1st – #15 YELLO Racing with a 54.327
2nd – #67 PHC with a 54.696
3rd – #81 YELLO Racing at the top 54.814
Not going to lie, we were a little bummed that technical issues with Speedhive not getting up took the spectacle away from qualy, was a great introduction to the season start and don’t worry… we will be doing it again.
As we got through qualifying however, those same technical issues saw a major problem in the timing tower and the race not being able to start on time. Corey and Maurice were crazily sort through the technical issues with some software not talking to another systems software. Pretty stressful time for all involved trying to get it sorted. Nevertheless, with a thousand frantic calls to different people across KNSW and other clubs we were thankfully able to access the system and get the race underway.
HUGE thanks to the two champions that are Corey Cameron and Maurice Aliberti for help getting this re-running!!!! Seriously, if the lad’s didn’t jump into this it was highly likely that we would not have been able to run the event on Saturday.
The delays in getting timing sorted saw the need to shorten Saturday’s race, after teams sitting back for over an hour the race got underway before a lap one party at turn one saw half the field come together.
The rain continued to avoid us, the attrition rate was minimal and the racing was as fierce as it ever is in TEKA.
Race #1 Result was
1st Outright – #27 Buildline Dynamite Racing
2nd Outright – #97 El Toro Racing
3rd Outright – #54 JOKER Endurance Team | TRAKKA
Sunday morning, the sun was shining and everyone was at the track bright and early to get set up and ready for another six hours of racing. NKRC had organised a coffee truck which was amazing and the NKRC canteen food was on point! Did anyone try the loaded fry’s?!?!?! #amazing
Thankfully none of the timing gremlins that we experienced the day before were present and the officials were able to stick the schedule and get proceedings underway.
As is normally the case, the racing was fierce across all three grades and from the front to the back of the grid. Even better, the rain managed to stay away!
Race #2 Result was
1st Outright – #15 YELLO Equipment Racing
2nd Outright – 97 El Toro Racing
3rd Outright – #27 Buildline Dynamite Racing
As they have numerous times in the past, huge congratulations to the Buildline boys in kart #27. Amazing drive in an ultra-competitive field to take the overall win for CROSSMULLER TEKA Round 1.
Everyone is already getting ready for Round 2 in Coffs Harbour in a few weeks, hopefully everyone is doing ok in the floods, see you at Coffs Harbour in a few weeks