This was to be my 2nd attempt at Wally's Charity Enduro and this year the only thing similar was the track layout. A new co-driver in Josh De Maio and no rain...
This was the first time I had driven this kart since my accident at Puckapunyal in May. All was good with it and I turned around 60 laps on the Friday afternoon.
Josh could only make it on the Saturday so I let him do the full 10 minute practice session in the morning, then it was straight into qualifying. We sent Josh out on the new rubber and he set the 3rd fastest time of the session so the pressure was on me to put in a good time. I managed to go 6th fastest in my session and the average of the 2 times put us in 5th position for the start of the race - qualifying isn't everything in a race like this but it was nice to be up the pointy end.
Because Josh was 20kg's lighter than me we decided to let him start the race so I didn't get swamped and fall back into the pack. Josh did the exact opposite to that and after losing a couple of positions at the start he led most of the first stint. He pitted around 1 second in front of David Sera for our first of 3 compulsory pit stops and I got in. The kart wouldn't start as I went to leave the pits and Kel Tresedar got the jump on me. All I did out there was make sure I didn't work the tyres too hard and keep an eye on Kel and made sure he wasn't getting too far away. The #1 kart ended up with problems and I lost track of what position I was in. All I had to do was make sure I was doing those consistent times and hand the kart back to Josh in one piece.
A safety car came out just before I was due for my stop so I was looking for Dad in the pits telling me to come in. As I came around the pits were just re-opening and I spotted Dad in the background waving his arms around so I just veered into the pits for my stop. This meant we were not quite going to make it to the end on one more stop because we could not make it on fuel. So we sent Josh out for another 35 mins and then I did my second stint for 50 mins. I was lapping consistently 3 tenths faster a lap than my first stint, I knew we had time to make up. We then did the 'splash n dash' and threw Josh back into the kart for the final 40 mins.
Josh drove an awesome last stint - taking half a lap out of the leaders (roughly 25 secs) before the completion of the race. We lost 2 laps on that final stop and thats how far we ended down. But 5th is a very good result and we were all happy but couldn't help but think what might have been. Always next year!
This event is an awesome way to finish off the year - while everyone still wants to win, it's not as serious as a State Championship event. The best karters are out there having some fun racing in a different format.
Race Results - Top Ten
1. #91 Lee Mitchener/Zane Wyatt - 280 laps
2. #58 Zeke Edwards/Mitchell Cuzens
3. #94 James Sera/Adam Willison
4. #56 Dean Foster/Brock Green - 279
5. #10 Paul Rodgers/Josh de Maio - 278
6. #37 Dylan Collet/Kayne Hughes - 276
7. #99 Grant Smith/Joel Smith
8. #20 Remo Luciani/Shane Piper *masters
9. #33 Rick Pringle/Ryan Sanderson
10. #14 Leigh Nicalou/Fergus Symes - 275 |