6th September 2011

Massive pile-up wrecks chances - from the Shepparton Advertiser

A blind corner at the Rotax Kart Nationals in Geelong led to an eightkart pile up with Goulburn Valley Kart Club member Isabella Thomas in the thick of it.

The Shepparton speedster battled through a disappointing pre-final to qualify 22nd for the final race.

‘‘We qualified 11th for the pre-final, but it was wet and we struggled a bit and dropped back to about 22nd,’’ Isabella’s dad Ben said.

‘‘We started the final out at 22 and on the first lap there was a big crash, which Isabella was involved in.

‘‘It destroyed the radiator in the kart and the race was redflagged, but because it happened on the first lap we were allowed to fix it.’’

Ben said a blind corner at the Geelong Kart Club track made the crash difficult to avoid.

‘‘There’s a grandstand on one corner, which is blind, so you can’t see until you get around it and the two karts in front of her came together and stopped in the middle of the track,’’ Ben said.

‘‘About five crashed into the rear of her and one went over the back of her kart and ruined the motor.’’

Ben said they soon discovered there was a lot more damage to the kart than first thought.

‘‘We didn’t notice there was a lot more damage to the steering because we were too busy with the radiator,’’ Ben said.

‘‘They gave us five minutes to fix it, so our engine builder from Melbourne was frantically trying to rebuild this engine and we didn’t pick up on the other problems.’’

Isabella finished middle of the pack following a second incident, which resulted in another restart and Ben said it wasn’t a bad result from an eventful day.

‘‘She stayed around the 20 to 22mark out of 40 and that’s 40 of the best karters out there in the Rotax category,’’ Ben said.

‘‘The winner and runner-up go to the world finals overseas.’’

The Rotax Nationals in Geelong marked Isabella’s second-last junior race before a move up to senior ranks.