From the Gold Coast Bulletin (http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2012/04/11/406751_gold-coast-news.html)
IT was almost a case of a hiss in the brakes during the Queensland karting championships in Gladstone at the weekend.
Or maybe a windscreen viper — if only the karts had windscreens.
Regardless, young drivers in a race at the titles were certainly confronted by a traffic hazard with a difference.
During the final of the Junior Rotax on Sunday, 15-year-old Mudgeeraba racer Mitch Griffin and fellow drivers were forced into hasty detours when a deadly king brown snake slithered in on the action.
The sight of any snake is always a chilling experience but the kart racers would have turned absolutely icy because what they sit in is basically a racing shell with no body panels or floor to keep a reptile, measuring at least 2m, away.
Thankfully for everybody concerned the only bite was delivered to the serpent, which unfortunately was run over by at least three drivers.
“The two guys in front of me ran over it and I landed on it after hitting the kerb,” Griffin said.
“Talk about a highlight of the weekend.”
Griffin had a kartcam fitted to his racer, which captured vision of the snake just before it was run over.
Race leader and eventual winner Brock Plumb didn’t know which way to go when he came across the snake, which was on the racing line. He jumped the kerb and went over it.
Jordan Boys, who was running several places behind, landed a knockout blow several seconds later.
Then Griffin completed the coup de grace when he, too, ran over the brown.
“I thought it was a broken chain, so I aimed to go straight over it,” said Plumb.
Boys said: “It looked like a shredded tyre and it wasn’t until after the race that we found out exactly what it was.”
According to Lee Hanatschek, media and marketing manager for the Australian Karting Association, a female official said the snake appeared from a women’s toilet and made what was to be a suicide beeline for the track.
