Highs And Lows At Garden City Champs
Highs And Lows At Garden City Champs
The 2014 Garden City Championship was held in Christchurch last weekend and seen some great racing across all classes. The event was run over two days with Saturday racing anti-clockwise and Sunday in a clockwise direction around the track. Six of our local drivers from Nelson headed south to take part and got some great results at the difficult circuit, but with the highs also had some lows.
Josh Bradley raced in the cadet raket class and took out 2nd overall behind Luke Cross from Christchurch. This was only Bradley's second time at track and first time running the track in reverse. He struggled to get into the groove on Friday practice but both race days he qualified the kart in p2.
The Rotax Heavy class was one of the smaller classes but seen some great racing. Kevin Barker qualified in p5 on Saturday and raced up into 3rd in the pre-final but struggled in the Final and dropped back to 5th. Sunday was abit better for Barker qualifying on p2 but there was only 0.09 of a second covering four drivers. With the times so close meant for close exciting racing and positions changing throughout the day, Barker finished the day in 3rd behind local drivers Jordan McDonnell and Scott Waller. Barker was tied on points for 3rd overall with Tyler Forbes from Marlborough and Andrew Downs based out of Christchurch.
Hannah Ross had some stiff competition in the Rotax Junior class with most of the field racing at their home track. Ross's times dropped over the weekend setting her personal best time at the circuit. She finished both finals on both days in 7th position.
Rotax light had the biggest class of them all with 18 drivers from across the South Island competing. Nelson drivers Lauryne-Anne Ashby, Jamie Smith and brother Cameron had a tough challenge in front to pull out a good result. Jamie and Cameron Smith managed to move forward through the field only to strike bad luck in both days. Jamie lost a wheel in the final on Saturday when running 4th and broke is chassis on Sunday after finishing 3rd in on of the heat races on Sunday which put him out for the rest of the day. Cameron broke a chain in Saturdays final and was taken out on Sunday in the final after running in 2nd place. After the bad luck of both the Smith brothers, Ashby went on to finish 12th and 7th in both finals which was a great result after learning a new track and still in her first year for racing.