Coming back to the Pro Tour at Todd Rd for 2010 I wanted to back up my performance from last year. Practice on the Friday went well where I was one of 2 drivers settings the pace. However, neither Pringle was there to compare to.

On the Friday night IKD had organised a sports psychologist to speak to drivers a crew and put on a free dinner. It was interesting to look at different ways at approaching sport mentally and I have already started thinking differently when I'm on the track.

After the 2 qualifying sessions I was P2 but some way off Jason Pringle's pace. There was less than a tenth between the next 3-4 drivers which would make the races interesting.

3 heat races were ahead of us as the rain started coming down. The spark plug just about fouled on the start for me and I dropped back to 12th place and never really make any progress back through the field. The second heat again was wet and I just dropped back again, this time only to 6th place - I'm really starting to dislike the wet! The 3rd heat was called off that afternoon as it was pouring rain and light was minimal. The thinking process was that I would come back the next day, the sun would be shining and I would be fast again.

Well sure enough it was still raining and again dropped back in the 3rd heat (despite making substantial changes to the kart) - this time back to 8th place.

Despite my poor heat race results I still had managed a 6th place starting spot for the pre-final and my mood was changing because the sky was looking much nicer and it had stopped raining. As we walked down to the grid it was a slicks vs. wets affair - no one really knew which way to go. Half the field went slicks and the other half went wets. As it was such a long race we decided the track would dry out enough for slicks and put them on at the last moment on the grid. It proved to be the right choice and after about the 5th lap the drivers on slicks started driving away from the drivers on wets. It was a crazy race as there was so much variance in speed between karts and also a mixture of wets and slicks plus the fact that if you went offline to try and pass someone it was wet so that made it a very challenging race. I even had the fastest lap of the race at one point but by the end of it all I was only in 6th place.

The guys that did the complete race on the wets were in big trouble if it rained for the final. These tyres were almost complete racing slicks, all the tread was gone!

The track was now completely dry for the 24 lap final so I was more pumped up for it as I knew I could do it in the dry. I gambled on the outside line at the start and made up one spot and narrowly avoiding contact. I made another spot on the first lap as well to find myself in 4th after lap one. I caught Aaron Rintoul fairly quickly and knew I had to get past fast to be able to catch the Pringle brothers who were out in front. I made the move stick on Aaron at pit corner and now my next focus was Rick Pringle. He was a fair way down the road but over the distance I figured I had a chance of running him down. I was taking about 1 tenth from Rick every lap but I just couldn't get there by the races end - I just couldn't get on the back to make a nuisance of myself to him. Jason Pringle won comfortably after getting a large buffer at the end of the first few laps.

After all that 3rd feels a bit like a get out of jail free card after the poor showing in the wet. We have sat down and discussed our wet setup approach and think we have an idea of what we have been doing wrong. Just have to wait until the next wet race to find out I guess!

There is a bit of a gap in the calendar now as we are not going to Queensland for the State Championships up there. The next race is the 3rd round of the All Star Series at Oakleigh in the middle of July.