Hot Wheels, cold track

Today I am at Southlands Kart track in Invercargill for day one of their southern series. Meanwhile the rest of the clan is back in Cromwell, playing tourist, walking beside pristine lakes near snow covered mountains, blah blah blah lets go racing!

First order of the day getting to the track, it looked like there was water on the windscreen but when I started the wipers I discovered it was about a centimetre of ice. Luckily I found a friendly local who knew how to deal with ice. Finding the track proved to be easy just follow all the kart trailers. I met up with John Keast and Rachael who had arranged everything for me. John and I did a seat fitting, which sounds all F1ish but really was just putting the kart on the ground and seeing if my butt fitted! Then it was off for entry checks.

Usually I don't bring my own gear because I have discovered that overseas standards are usually different but I thought everything would be the same between Australia and NZ, nope my race suit didn't have the right numbers. John found me a new suit which I considered buying until I realised it was fleece lined, great here not so good in the tropics.

I attended drivers brief which like usual was a lot of officials talking and not many drivers listening, except for me of course. But I did like their attitude, everyone is here to win, so race hard but be considerate of your competitors.

There was one six minute practise session and as the sun was still struggling to get up and I had new tyres it was going to be challenging. Three spins and a few exertions on e grass and I was ready for racing, not. At least I suppose the Briggs and Stratton is at home on the grass, first heat is going to be interesting.

The meeting is over two days at two different tracks with 5 heats today and 3 more and a final tomorrow at Dunedin a few hours up the road. All the heats were random draws and fortunately I was towards the back of my class for the first few heats, time to learn the track before I started off pole.

Throughout the day John and I kept tweaking the kart and I got faster and faster, relatively speaking, it was a four stroke after all... My best result of the day was starting and finishing second, although that was thanks to a few agricultural passes from one of the front runners. I tried one of those sorts of passes in the later heats which really impressed the driver in front as he held a fInger up to tell me I was number 1. Just doing my bit for Trans-Tasman relations.

I had the option of racing on day two but Ann seemed pretty excited about going to the snow so at the end of the day I headed back to Cromwell and got back in time for a late dinner and a movie. As has been my experience racing overseas is always fun, the people are always welcoming, well the ones you don't punt and again I was very lucky to pit with John and his crew.Read more