City of Melbourne Titles
Saturday 18th & Sunday 19th August 2007 (Go Kart Club of Victoria)
Fresh from his first podium at the Australasian 'C' Grade Titles Dylan arrived at the City of Melbourne Titles looking gain experience by running in an exceptionally strong field. With the event doubling as the 'All Japan Qualifier' and drawing karters from across the country it boasted the strongest field that Dylan had ever run in. Given the strength of the field we approached it looking to gain some valuable experience and a bit of fun.
Having been unable to attend the practice session held on Thursday and Friday, we hit the track on Saturday for our first run in the carbi session. With only this limited opportunity to dial in a good setup, we looked ready to struggle in the qualifying session. Struggling with the setup Dylan was only able to post the 34th fastest time.
An unfortunate series of mechanical problems resulted in DNF's in both Heats 1 & 2, consigning Dylan to the rear of the grid for the Pre-final and further depriving him of badly needed time on the track.
Starting the Pre-final on Sunday we first and foremost targeted a finish and hoped that some of the setup changes would result in slightly better pace. Though we were able to obtain our first finish of the weekend, setup problems still plagued Dylan’s efforts to set competitive times. Despite his best efforts Dylan was unable to wrestle the kart any higher that 30th place and remained almost a second off the leaders pace.
With the Final running to 18 laps and having never run a race of that distance before, and with little to lose we proceeded to make a few setup gambles in order to tray and take a few positives out of the weekend. Starting the final in 35th position despite a hairy start when he was pushed wide and onto the grass, Dylan proceeded to make rapid progress moving to 28th place in lap 3. Unfortunately a small error caused Dylan to run wide on lap 5 and on hitting a bump take a short flight before landing back on the track. Dropping back to 31st after the flight and despite a faster kart, Dylan was unable to make any further gains due to some outstanding defensive driving by Mark Appleby and Kyle Williamsz.