vortex’s blog

After the disappointment of having to miss out on my chosen class Senior National Heavy at the South Australian State Titles due to lack of entires, i’ve decided to write down a list of my goals and aspirations for the 2008 Karting Season

At the present time, there isn’t enough people interested in running Senior National Heavy here in South Australia to get a field, so Dad and I have made the decision to, at least initially, move up to the Sportsman class for the short term. Sportsman is essentially the National class with a Clubman engine, they generally run a 28/30 chassis and 40mm axle (most national class karts would run a 30mm axle though) with the harder compound Dunlop SL1 racing tire. This class is fairly ideal for the short term because we can use essentially all of our current equipment to run in this class - the kart, tires and rims we have are all perfect for the class. We will have to purchase a decent Clubman motor however which will probably cost around $2000 to source a good one through our engine builder, but it will be worth it. Sportsman also happen to run at the minimum weight limit of 150kg, which is basically where I am in my National kart.

There have been rumors that a number of the Juniors who are moving up this year will be running Senior National Heavy, so here’s hoping they do so we can race against people who are at the same minimum weight as me. Our Yamaha J motor seems to be an absolute ball-tearer, it was able to drag me around 12kg over the minimum weight of Senior National Light around 0.3 to 0.5 second a lap off the leaders lap times. Anyone who knows karting, knows 0.3 to 0.5 seconds per lap when you’re 12kg’s over is a pretty good effort

At this stage the idea is to run Sportsman in the Festival State Cup series rounds for at least the first 6 months, at that time we are going to make a decision on weather to purchase another Arrow kart and run Clubman Heavy, as well as either Sportsman or, if the rumors are correct and they get a field, Senior National Heavy.

My short term goals at this stage are:
1) Purchase top running Clubman motor early January
2) Practice as often as possible in January and February.
3) Finish top 3 in Sportsman at Festival State Cup Group A, Round 1 @ Mount Gambier, Saturday March 1st.

Long Term Goals:
1) Finish top 3 in Sportsman in Festival State Cup points.
2) Win Senior National Heavy in Festival State Cup
3) Finish top 3 in Sportsman at South Australian Closed State Titles @ Whyalla
4) Finish top 5 in Clubman Heavy at South Australian Open State Titles @ Whyalla
5) Win Senior National Heavy at South Australian Open State Titles @ Whyalla (Entries Permitting)

Even Longer term goals:
1) Win Clubman Heavy Festival State Cup Title.
2) Win Clubman Heavy South Australian Open State Title
3) Finish top 3 Clubman Heavy National Titles

If I can achieve those goals, I would like to build an Improved Production RX7 race car and race that in addition to continuing to race Karts.