1800Bumper Race Report

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Wakefield race report

Saturday night before race day and the phone goes, on the other end of the line its Sam Zavaglia asking if I am still up to giving him a lift down to Wakefield in the morning. Now there is nothing like a bit of a yarn on a long drive and with Sam I set myself the goal of trying to get more that two words in during the two and a bit hours at the wheel. All jokes aside he is a wealth of knowledge and having been in the sport for so long and the guy is always happy to help out with some pointers. As we were driving down the Hume I was relaying a story to Sam about the ripple strips at Wakefield being a bit on the large side and how I was going to make a point of avoiding them, this would come back to bite me.

We pulled into the race track and being my first time there I was pretty impressed with the place. We managed to find Rami and Steve to pit with and I parked the 80 in between the two twins, I then asked Steve if we should begin to build a snow cave to warm up.

Practice

Things were pretty chilly early on and for practice I was happy to get some laps in just to have a look at the track. I ended up doing three laps and was disappointed when the chequered flag was shown. My first impression of Wakefield was that the place is a drivers track and that it was going to be hard to nail that one good lap around here. I got back to the pits and noticed that there was a five mill round hole in my exhaust, the exhaust and I haven't been getting on all that well of late and this was the latest in a long line of unacceptable behaviour that may see it being retired. Lucky for me my good mate Mehmet had thrown a spare in with his kart so that I would once again be able to compete for the day.

Qualifying

I managed 8 laps in qualifying and ended up with a 1.10.4, I think I could have done better than that but when I got out there Graeme Taplin and I forgot we were out there to set a good lap time and just decided to have a great old 7 to 8 lap race. It was the best fun I had all day and with Graeme and I catching the other 80cc kart of Nick Cancian it turned into a cracker old battle with him as well. I never even got the chance to talk to Graeme during the day but he is really quick and great fun to race with as is Nick who I met for the first time during the weekend. So at the end of the session I was pretty happy with that time as I was sure the 80 had fair bit left in her. Nick had set a time of 1.11.2 and had done well for what I understand was his first time out in a gearbox kart.

Race 1

This was going to be another meeting with rolling starts and with so many Max guys in the mix it was always going to be interesting getting so many evenly matched karts into the first corner. I ended up in the middle of what seemed like a heap of Max's and it was like Sydney peak hour going into turn two. I managed to make it out the other end and so did everyone else I think. From there It was a funny old race as I found myself out on my own, I was behind the first bunch of Max guys and in front of Alan Dodge who was catching me along with the 125 GB of Ian Mash. On lap four I was heading up the hill heading into the left-hand kink when all hell broke loose, the kart suddenly snapped to the right at the rear end and I was just a passenger as everyone managed to avoid me. Poor old Ian Mash must have a strong ticker as I am pretty sure he must have just been thinking why are these nut bags always in front of me. At the time all I could put it down to was hitting the ripple strip that I thought I was miles away from.

After the dust settled Alan Dodge who was following me at the time and did very well to avoid the whole thing let me know that it wasn't the ripple strip and that the kart just appeared to snap right. So after all that I ended up with very sore set of ribs and a DNF and still not sure what made it snap so violently to the right. (maybe the tool behind the wheel)

Race 2

After being checked out by the fantastic medical staff that were on hand at the track, I was told that a break was very unlikely and that I would be ok to head out. So off we went for race two. I was starting from the rear of the grid with Steve in his twin, Steve had been having battery problems all day and had found himself well off the pace. I started well and had made up a few positions when on lap two I got a shot of pain in the ribs that I wasn't all that happy about. I decided for my safety and everyone else's that I should pull off and end it there. I went and saw the medics again and they told me I needed to get an X-ray as it seemed to have gotten worse. Nick ended up getting his 80 into the top ten and in front of a 125GB so well done to him.

Race 3

I sat out race three and checked out the action from the hill. Its always interesting to see it from the other side and it was even better to see my mate Rami take out the trophy race and get into the 1.01 lap times on really second hand rubber. The racing was good everywhere and Nick once again put up a great fight in the 80cc to really hassle some of the more experienced long circuit guys. Over all Rami took it out, Luke Brown ran second and big George Koutros ran a very consistent weekend to finish second in the twins. In the 125cc Gb it was Jeremy Shelton who made it two wins from two outings in his Stockman followed by John Pellicano who must be due some good luck in the engine department after setting the pace all day again only to have problems. Coming in third was the very consistent Ian Mash driving Mehmet Sinani's Benson. Nick Cancian set the pace in the 80ccGB and in the Max's it was the Victorian runners of Dean Crooke, Mark Wicks and David Brand that took out the top three spots overall.

So that's it for Wakefield for a few months, I can't wait to get back there and put some good times in on that track, with a bit of luck there will be as many as 5 or six 80cc GB karts there for the meeting and I am hoping that Nick can make it back again. Many thanks to the track medical staff that did a fantastic job with me, Sam Zavaglia who not only drove home but packed all my stuff up for me and then unpacked it when we got home that night. Also last but not least a big thanks to all the help on the day with all the running around behind the scenes, it doesn't go unnoticed by any of the drivers and we really do appreciate all the volunteers that help out on these days.

Jason Laker.