Any Dirt Track Kart Drivers among us?

[w00dsy]

maybe if you rolled more instead of landing on your wheels your back might have been better

[Speed]

He won a title that year so it didn't effect him much! An all or nothing racer if ever ive seen one

Wins and titles are the recommended treatment, sounds like he was a gun.

I hope you heal up well.

Plus, I think you're mad; rolling is much less painful when you have a roll cage around you...I've had six rollovers in my career.

Thanks, rollovers do seem to be much more common in dirt karting than I remember in my ashsphalt days. Still I think injuries aren’t too common. M y crash was at a kink rather than a corner so it was pretty high speed which was probably the major factor.
Six rollovers, sounds expensive.

maybe if you rolled more instead of landing on your wheels your back might have been better

LOL

[richo]

I ran clubman light for around four years I loved the track at Orange it was by far the best tracks I have driven .

I was more into to racing my mates but being in lights and they were in heavy and super fatdonuteaters I never got to race against them but against 13 yr olds that were sooo much better than me , depressing really

[Speed]

The footage isn't great but at around the 4 minute 20 mark. I'm number 30, second in line. I couldn't get past the guy in front and I tried to turn in from a bit wide and cut under him. Unfortunately I cut a little too hard.


I ran clubman light when karting was on a surge in the 90's. It wasn't uncommon to have a full field of 40. I loved it.

[Enforcer-J]

Wow that was an epic rollover :/ screw that for a track!

[VTRacing]

That looks like fun!

Can you get 4WD karts?

[Speed]

sounds like the last event wasn't. How good are you at wiping your butt with the left hand?

As it turns out I'm quite a bit worse at wiping my butt with my left hand than typing with it which is really saying something.

[Speed]

So I just had my first meeting back racing since breaking my arm 9 weeks ago.

I was a little worried that I would be too tentative and over cautious because after all, I am getting on and I don’t bounce like I used to. As it was I had a reasonably high speed crash when my throttle hung for a second and I took evasive action to miss the guy in front.
The top couple of drivers in WA were not present but the field of 17 was still pretty decent.
I’m pretty pleased with my results and had 2 wins out of my five races and finished the night second overall.

Emjay (my wife for those who don’t know) is an extremely competent driver in bitumen karts, (15 years ago), and is having a harder time transitioning to the dirt but was having a pretty decent night until her engine shit a big end bearing. We bought our engines second hand so that is not a huge surprise.

I must add that I am in the very fortunate position of receiving great advice from people that I used to race speedway and karts against back in the day and I drove a new/second hand kart that was absolutely on rails and I seemed to be able to drive it very straight while others were all sideways and out of shape.

It was my first time using the GoPro so I need to adjust the angle a touch.

[Speed]

Another video from Wagin which is where our state championships will be held in 4 weeks’ time.
I made a mess of the start and turn 2 but had some fun coming back through the field afterwards.


I don’t really expect to do any good in the states as the nominated field of 19 is pretty serious….3 Eastern Staters and probably the best 11 drivers in WA, Emjay and myself and another 3 who are probably just average.
This afternoon I dropped my engine off to be rebuilt and my engine builder pulled the cylinder off it while I was there. After measuring the piston and bore clearance he reckons it is pretty shagged, so hopefully I’ll have a noticeable performance gain....I'm consistently getting creamed at the starts

Since I came back from breaking my arm we’ve been racing fortnightly to make up for the lost time. Emjay only raced once while I was out of action.
She also had a rollover the other week and although hers was fairly slow, because she only weighs 50 kg, her kart is loaded up with lead to make the minimum weight of 140 kgs so that was a fair amount of weight to have on top of her.

After my rollover I bought a second-hand Apache chassis which seems pretty good so we ordered a brand new one for the girl. Here she is looking pleased with her new ride.

Michelle-Apache.jpg

[VTRacing]

I think it's seriously awesome that you two compete together.

Good luck in the state champs.

[Speed]

It is pretty awesome....I can buy pretty much what I like within reason....so long as I get 2.
The best part of it is that Emjay is serious about it and she is very quick too.

Thanks, I'll be happy with a top 10 result I reckon.

[VTRacing]

Forgot to say: excellent video, my back was hurting just watching it.

[w00dsy]

Nice speed Speed

[Speed]

Thanks, I feel like we're getting there gradually. It makes the 20 - 30 hours that I spend each week in the workshop worthwhile.

[wobblysauce]

That camera angle makes the karts look big.

[Speed]

Yeah, I think the wide angle distorts it somewhat but they aren't tiny and I think the sidepods and meaty tyres add to the size.

[Speed]

Here is some footage of Michelle's favourite race from the other night.



The guy in the WA#1 kart is one of the fastest 125 drivers in Australia.

[wobblysauce]

Not saying it is bad.. good angle.

[Speed]

No, I know you're not saying it's bad.

I guess much of it is because karts are usually viewed from standing.
Dirt karts also have larger diameter rear wheels. 6" as opposed to 5" on bitumen karts.

[Speed]

Just back from our state championships. We had a great weekend socially….our racing however, was pretty disappointing.
Our field ended up being 17 strong. Michelle finished in equal 11th and I finished 1 point behind her in 13th.
It’s not the first time she has beaten me and I’m sure it won’t be the last.

I think we both psyched ourselves out before we even turned a wheel as everyone kept telling us how crazy everyone is in a state championships and it was also easily the best quality field we have raced against.

Race1: I started out of 3 but I got pushed wide by the guy out of 5 and hung out to dry and I lost 6 spots before we hit the 2nd corner, and although I had made most of them back again, I ran up the back of someone who made a mistake in front of me with a couple of laps to go and lost most of what I had gained, finally finishing 7th.

Race 2: saw me start last out of 17, I was supposed to start out of 15 but gave up 2 spots on purpose to hang back and try to stay out of trouble.
I crashed out and DNFed in the 2nd corner after hitting the back of the two craziest drivers in the field when they were trying to out muscle each other. At least one of them got called up to the steward’s office…but that didn’t help me.
Unfortunately that is racing.

You can still see them arguing in the background and they were both able to continue which is so often the case. They seem to be in a strange position to where in incident happed but I guess we have all travelled forward quite a way.



Race 3: I again lost a heap of spots at the start in an identical repeat of my race one start and then spun on lap 2 when I caught up to someone more quickly than I anticipated and I had to take evasive action.
I recovered ok and was able to pass a few drivers but finished in a lower position than I started.

Race 4: Was my only good race of the weekend where I ended up 6th after starting out of 11th.
I still ended up destroying a rear wheel when I sideswiped a driver who spun in front of me.


Race 5: I started out of 12 and made up a few spots by turn 3 but ended up DNFing when I caught my front wheel on the inside windrow.

I think that we were both over cautious the whole weekend which really creates more problems than it solves.
We’re looking forward to next year.

Anyway it was still a great weekend and great experience. You know what they say…..”a bad day at karts is better than a good day at work anytime”….or anything else for that matter.


Our latest Team Photo.

[Enforcer-J]

Good write up makes me want to race again! Be an aggressive arse like the rest of them next time and you're bound to improve on your result
I found that out when I got back into it just how crazy they were and got destroyed on the starts in the state champs by being over cautious... but your chances of being taken out remain the same! After that I didnt take any shit and started winning rounds, although I made the old man very nervous haha

[Speed]

Thanks En-J, yeah most of the guys I race against are late teens to mid twenties and have never hurt themselves, so have zero fear.

You should race again....I had no idea how much I missed it.

[Speed]

I won my first dirt kart race meeting on the weekend, so I'm pretty stoked at the moment.....can't stop grinning.

I thought that at 53 and being away from racing for 15 years that I'm probably past being competitive but I had a good day and the 18 strong field had some pretty decent drivers.

I'm hopeful for a few more now....I've had a couple of drinks so you'll have to forgive my skiting.

[wobblysauce]

But the thing is.. did you enjoy the weekend?

[pab]

Awesome, great stuff!