A Wild Weekend @ Round 2 in Pucka

Well … that’s a wrap for Round 2 of the Australian Karting Championships from Puckapunyal.

It was a challenging track that didn’t really suit my driving style, and I managed to qualify in P40 in a field of 76.  Not where I wanted to be, but there were over 30 drivers split by less than a tenth of a second, which was bloody crazy on a 43.5 second lap.

A P16, P18 and P20 finish in the first 3 heat races had us in a comfortable position to head through to the final and start somewhere in the mid 20’s. Unfortunately, I was absolutely nailed from behind on Lap 1 in the 4th heat and had a DNF, which I thought would put us outside the top 40 and miss the final.

We had to completely rebuild the Kart in the hope of making the final, with a bent rear axle, steering column, tie rods, split rear wheel rim and a number of other things.

We ended up P41 in the points and in the ‘Lucky Dog’ position, hoping that someone else failed to make the grid in time. We got very lucky and I squeezed into the final in P40. We were literally filling up the petrol tank on the way to the grid! I’ll take it!

No pressure in the final, so it was all about having a bit of fun and seeing how far up we could get. Fought my way up to P30, ran wide under brakes, and then did it all again. Plenty of fun and ended up in P32 in the end.

Overall, a positive weekend. We had speed in the kart and could have been much higher without the DNF, but that’s racing.  We made the final which is a big step forward. That’s 2 finals out of 2 in 2024.

Head down and we go again in Emerald for Round 3 at the end of May. High Horsepower track with a lot of similarities to Puckapunyal.