Australian Karting Championship - Monarto SA - Round 3

Australian Karting Championship Round 3 – Monarto SA.

Highs & lows of motorsport as mechanical gremlins strike when it counts for the Shannons backed driver Emerson Harvey.

Qualifying; With less than 1 second covering the first 25 karts it’s always hard to get a perfect lap, Emerson just didn’t quite have the setup right for a slightly damp track and ended up 14th.

Heat 1; The Monarto circuit has a very fast approach to turns 1 & 2, so lots of bumping on the first lap, Emerson lost 3 spots but over the course of the race moved back up to his starting position 14th.

Heat 2; A few changes to the kart for this heat and Emerson was much happier with the kart set up but not happy with the top speed, moving up to 11th over the line.

Heat 3; We decided to make an engine change with immediate results and in this heat Emerson was able to battle in the pack.  He was running 9th when he was pushed off the track by another driver and ended up finishing the heat in 12th position.

Heat 4; With really encouraging signs from heat 3 Emerson made a rare driving error which saw him spin and stop in the middle of the track only to be collected by the last kart, which was totally unavoidable. Remarkably, with huge damage to the kart he came home in 24th.

Final; Managing a starting position of 13th for the final which was not too bad considering the up’s & downs over the weekend. The start was frantic & Emerson was tagged heavily from the rear putting him off the track.  After quickly rejoining the pack, it began to sprinkle with rain, and Emerson was putting in some great laps moving up to 12th. With the lead pack in sight, we then heard a misfire & Emerson started to lose positions, dropping to 15th. Later we found that the engines coil had failed.

The Championship moves on to Emerald in Far North Queensland and Emerson is determined to turn around a run of bad luck.