NEWCASTLE SHAKES DOWN AHEAD OF NATIONALS

The Junior National Light field races into turn one (Pic: Darryl Hadley)

The Shakedown for the upcoming National Championships at the Mount Sugarloaf circuit at Cameron Park has been a huge success for Newcastle Kart Racing Club with 116 entries from as far afield as Mackay in the North, WA to the West and South Australia in the South taking part in the two day race meeting last weekend.

Saturday saw three heats of ten laps on the 1056-metre circuit take place. Many of the heats were hotly contested with fierce competition at the front and in most cases races within races throughout the field.

The youngest drivers in action in the Junior National Light class produced some excellent racing with the lead changing on many occasions without contact, a lesson some of the senior classes could learn from. As the temperature passed the 34 degrees mark tyre management was high on the agenda keeping in mind there was still 35 kilometres of racing between the pre-final & final to be contested on Sunday.

The competitors were greeted by clear blue skies on Sunday morning with the forecast predicting severe thunderstorms in the early afternoon.

The pre finals showed again many close races with the karters keen to do well to get a good position for the start of the final especially in the fields of 20 plus karts. Many of the locals had been doing well throughout the weekend & were positioned well to have a good shot at the podium in the race that really counted – the Final.

As expected the finals were intense. It was amazing that after 18 laps you could have thrown a sheet over the first three in the Junior National Light class as they crossed the line with only 0.482 of a second separating them with local Jordan Pike crossing the line first. After close racing all weekend Ryan Pike was a runaway winner in Junior National Heavy and Sam Tooth from Maitland was successful in the Clubman Super Heavy class. Another local, Drew Ridge showed great skills to also get over the line in first in Junior Clubman.

Of the 25 trophies on offer locals were able to take home six – including four wins from the nine classes , a second placing and a third. By all accounts the event was an excellent success.

Newcastle Kart Racing Club President Mick Parsons was very pleased with the running of the event with many positives being taken away by the committee and with a little bit of fine tuning the National Championships to be held over the Easter Long Weekend will be an excellent event.

Results
National Championship Shakedown
Newcastle Kart Racing Club
March 15/16

Junior National Light
1. Jordan Pike
2. Kyle Bonser
3. Joshua Car

Junior National Heavy
1. Ryan Pike
2. Nathan Rourke
3. Holly Marquis

Junior Clubman
1. Drew Ridge
2. Chris Sandrone
3. Kyle Angel

Senior National
1. Jeffrey Rahaley
2. Andreas Chronis
3. Matthew Pritchard

Clubman Light
1. Alex Waters
2. Matthew Waters
3. Jordi Marcon

Clubman Heavy
1. Luke Marquis
2. Kris Walton
3. Shayne Piper

Clubman Super Heavy
1. Sam Tooth

X30 Light
1. Tyler Greenbury
2. Glenn Rheinberger
3. Kyle Angel

X30 Heavy
1. Kris Walton
2. Matthew Boylan
3. Lindsay Bunt