February Club Day
Sunday 25th February 2007 (Oakleigh Go-Kart Racing Club)
The weekend began promisingly with a successful Saturday test, where with the assistance of the team at Melbourne Kart Centre we were able to consolidate on previous gains and improve lap times by a further 3 tenths of a second.
The morning of the race day presented conditions ideal karting, cool and dry. Drawn to start in position 17 out of a field of 22 karts including James Sera, Bart Price, Ashley Arora and Aaron Rintoul it was set to be a challenging first heat. After a smooth start to Heat 1, Dylan was able to slowly move his way up the field. The race culminated in tight fight with Daniel Perna for position 13 which lasted 6 laps, until Dylan was able to make a decisive move two laps from the end and hold position to win the personal duel. Most encouragingly he was able drop his lap time from 43.2s in practice to 42.5s by the middle of Heat 1.
Starting in position 3 for the reverse grid Heat 2, Dylan was caught out by the start, deteriorating conditions and a less than ideal setup, to slip down the order. However with some tough defensive driving he was able to hold of some fast finishing drivers and bring the kart home in 11th place.
With the assistance of Roger (MKC) a couple of setup changes were made for Heat 3. These changes, combined with some excellent driving resulted in Dylan dropping his lap time into the 42.2 second bracket. While this improvement was not rewarded by a high finishing position, Dylan in his first outing in Clubman Light showed enough to demonstrate that a promising and interesting season lies ahead.
With our next race the 17th March night race at Oakleigh, we will be leaving no stone unturned in the coming two weeks to make the further gains necessary to push to the front of the field.