Illawarra Karting Challenge

06 June 2014 / Words & photos by Bryan Shedden

Last year, Peter Feutrill organised the Jinba Ittai Challenge, a fantastic karting day at Picton which turned out to be a hotly contested battle for regional supremacy between Illawarra, RPM and Sydney Chapters. You can read about it on page 26 of Club Torque Winter 2013.

Following the success of that day, and in frustration about getting a "slow kart" in the final race (excuses, excuses!), Graham Fletcher has taken it to another level for the Jinba Ittai Challenge II in 2014. His concept is that each Chapter will hold their own karting challenge to identify their fastest drivers, and then the champions from each Chapter will represent their region at the finals to be hosted by RPM Chapter at Indy 800 Karts in Wilberforce sometime later this year. Graham has a "cunning plan" involving a complicated spreadsheet (!) to ensure that the finalists are not disadvantaged by differences in individual kart speed.

The Illawarra Chapter was the first to hold its Chapter Karting Challenge, and chose the brand new indoor karting centre at Albion Park Rail. C1 Speed opened for business at Easter this year and is one of the first venues in Australia to offer electric karts. The electric motors powering these karts have several clear advantages over petrol-powered karts, including a low environmental impact, absence of exhaust fumes, and superior performance with amazing acceleration out of tight corners.

Meeting at 6:30pm on Wednesday 4th June, our 13 drivers registered and were then split into two groups for three races each. After a safety briefing, we were sent out for our first race of 18 laps. The track is tight and twisty with one high speed section, and there is little room for overtaking. Hence, it's all about setting your fastest laptime, rather than being the first across the finish line. Our drivers acquitted themselves extremely well, and there were no stoppages for crashed karts. The only incident of note was when the motor in my kart mysteriously overheated on the outlap for the second race, and became shrouded in a cloud of smoke! I was swapped to another kart and off we went again.

Boy were these karts FUN! With so much instantaneous torque on tap, you drive them totally on the throttle and with delicate adjustments of steering to counter understeer and oversteer. The racing was also very courteous, with the slower drivers regularly moving aside to let the faster ones through. Between the races, everyone poured over their timing sheets, and shared advice on how they could shave precious time off their laps.

After all six races were complete, it was time to announce the winners. Jan and her daughters Allyson & Emma claimed the podium places for the ladies, and embarrassed their dad Garry by all beating him too! For the gents, I thought I had first place all wrapped up ... until Tony lept ahead of both Peter & I with an incredible final lap. Well driven Tony!

Driver	Time	Gents	Ladies
Tony Williams	26.178	1st
Bryan Shedden	26.287	2nd
Peter Feutrill	26.757	3rd
Phillip Tuckey *	27.741	4th
Brendan Barr	27.840	5th
Phil Reid	27.996	6th
Allyson Giustiniani *	28.215		1st
Emma Burton *	28.534		2nd
Jan Gibson	28.697		3rd
Ken Tuckey	28.972	7th
Garry Gibson	29.010	8th
Fiona Shedden	29.455		4th
Jill Feutrill	29.840		5th

 * = non-member

 

Thank you to everyone who participated in the karting night. We all had a great time and there's already plenty of chatter about doing it all again very soon!

If you're keen to try out these new electric karts, give one of these places a visit:

Venue	Location	Website	First Opened
Xtreme Indoor Karting	Warners Bay NSW	Link	14 Dec 2013
C1 Speed	Albion Park Rail NSW	Link	19 Apr 2014
Power Kart Raceway	Griffith ACT	Link	28 May 2014

Click here to see Bryan's photo album of the event