Southern City Classic
Saturday 13th October 2007 (Oakleigh Go Kart Racing Club)
After making significant progress in the past couple of months in the past couple of months, we approached the Southern City Classic looking to measure ourselves against some of the best drivers in the state; with the field including James Sera, Bart Price and Trent James.
The carbi session revealed a very slippery track with large quantities of dust being blown on to on the track, producing highly variable conditions. However by the end of the second session we had found sufficient speed to look to the races with optimism.
Starting Heat 1 in pole position, Dylan was jumped on the first lap by James Sera and Sarron Caddy, and settled into third place. Despite the great pace being shown, Trent James was able to slide past in lap 4 dropping Dylan back to 4th. In confirmation of his recent progress Dylan was able to not just stay with Trent, but stay in the fight for 2nd and 3rd. Holding down fourth for much of the race, Dylan was piped on the line by Bart Price and relegated to a very creditable 5th behind James Sera (1st), Trent James (2nd) Sarron Caddy (3rd) and Bart Price (4th).
Starting in 18th for the reverse grid Heat 2 it looked set to be a challenging race. The first attempt at a start proved to be a bit of a mess, when a spinner on the role around laps was unable to restart and forced the field to scatter to avoid contact. On the second attempt at the start Dylan jumped from 18th to 9th by the second lap, unfortunately his rapid progress was interrupted when he was forced wide mid race and dropped back into 11th place. Recovering Dylan fought his way back into 10th place but ran out of laps to make any further progress.
Courtesy of his strong finish in Heat 1, Dylan began the Pre-Final 7th on the grid. Dropping back slightly on the start to 9th, Dylan began a slow recovery and by lap 7 had regained 7th place. In a tight fight over 7th, Dylan was sideswiped by Nicholas Lakasas and though able to stay on track (with Nicholas forced to retire) Dylan dropped back a couple of positions before recovering to 8th.
With the Final starting under lights Dylan was jumped at the start and dropped back to 11th by lap 2. Fighting back strongly Dylan was able to pick his way into 6th by lap 7 and managed to open a couple of kart lengths on Nicholas Lakasas. Though unable to chase down 5th place man Sarron Caddy, Dylan none the less ended the meet in a strong 6th place underlining his rapidly improving pace.