Red Ice Racing - Round 2: Australian Superkart Championship

Round 2: Australian Superkart Championship

The second and final leg of the Australian Superkart Championship was a rollercoaster weekend, bringing mixed fortunes for drivers Yiani and Ilya Harpas. Ilya narrowly missed out on 3rd place in the Championship, finishing a mere 5 points behind Gary Pegoraro’s 87. Yiani fared less well, after entering the round sitting 3rd he managed to hold on to 8th position after a terrible weekend where he failed to finish a single race.

After a normal day of Friday testing, Qualifying Session 1 saw the first sign of competitiveness amongst the field of Superkarts. Yiani qualified a fantastic 2nd, only 0.0243 of a second behind 6-time 250cc National Champion Warren McIlveen’s time of 1:30.3992. Despite Yiani struggling for balance on new Bridgestone YKH tyres, he expressed delight with the result “Although frustrating, to miss out on pole position by such a small amount is hugely encouraging for our pace for this weekend, especially considering the handling isn’t right on these new tyres yet.”

Ilya suffered a gearbox failure and only managed 1 limping lap to qualify 11th. Unfortunately he was relegated to the rear of the field after failing to set the mandatory minimum 3 laps in qualifying, setting himself up for a tough weekend.

The first of four heats took place on Saturday afternoon. Yiani lined up alongside Warren McIlveen on the front row, giving hope for a strong race ahead. Yiani bolted off the line ahead of all competition, only to have is kart slowly and devastatingly come to a halt a few hundred metres down the track at Turn 2. Ilya suffered a slipping clutch for the first 3 laps but managed to claw his way into the top 10 after starting from the back of the grid. Unfortunately, his kart also stopped with only 1 lap remaining, courtesy of a dislodged battery. If not for this incident, Ilya would have finished 3rd in the National Championships.

Sunday brought new hope and 3 more race heats to be contested. Both Yiani and Ilya had to start from the rear of the grid for heat 2, but aimed to blast their way back through the field. Yiani did so in convincing fashion. In fact, he blasted through so hard that on lap 2, he had a coming together with a slower kart in the middle of the 215km/h turn 1, ripping his nosecone off and damaging his floortray. This incident brought out the safety car for 3 of the 5 laps. Thankfully both drivers were unhurt. Disappointingly Yiani’s kart was unable to be repaired and he had to sit out the rest of the weekend. Ilya survived a minor coming together with another kart to finish 7th.

Heat 3 was a relatively less eventful race. Ilya again started towards the back of the grid on combined points, but struggled for pace amongst traffic to finish in 8th position.

In the final heat, Ilya made his way up through the field to 5th despite a slow getaway but he outbraked himself, went off-track and dropped to 8th. Over the next 3 laps, he made up 3 seconds on the leading group but ultimately ran out of laps and finished just 6 tenths of a second behind the trio in front of him.

Although it was a disappointing weekend, the pace that the Zip Eagle II/BRC package showed over the course of the Australian Championship was highly encouraging, and Ilya’s 4th position provided some motivation and result for the effort that was put in over the whole year. RedIce Racing would like to especially thank Dave and Barb Heptworth of Zip BDH, Gerard Siebert and Todd Johnson for their support and hard work in the pits. Further thanks go to our major sponsors Internode, Meta Planners and Davtec.