It was more the event we were going for, not so much the track. Eastern Creek is perfect for the high powered gearbox karts with it's wide, fast, Euro-style layout, less interesting for the little Max. But you can't knock back the V8 Supercar crowd.

Photo courtesy Shauna Smith www.horswellracingteam.com.au

When I told Lagler Australia's MD Cameron Luke we could gatecrash the Gearbox party on the V8 Support programme he didn't hesitate, and I must acknowledge him yet again for the generous support. However with the rest of the Hyper crew unable to make the trip it was a solo voyage for me. I arrived Thursday, saw that the Creek was right on the way to my accommodations, so I did all the unloading early and went "home" to relax.

"Home" in this case was, and I'm sorry to namedrop, the famous Kings School Parramatta. My close friend and godfather Dr Timothy Hawkes is the headmaster. He, wife Jane and daughters Pip and Alicia always welcome me with open arms, not to mention some fine booze (after the racing of course), a cigar or two and usually a tour of the facilities. In this case, he was proudly showing off his new (2007) $10m sports centre which was indeed an amazing work of architecture. I suggested that the smoothly tarmac-ed roads around the massive school grounds could best be used for a superkart "street race". In fact he's planning on landing a solar challenege event, so we were almost on the same page!

Deano Davies had an average race weekend with 2 DNFs before charging back to 17th from nowhere in race 3. He improved over 7 seconds a lap from prac 1 to races. Photo courtesy Shauna Smith www.horswellracingteam.com.au

Friday morning beckoned and the only other two Rotaxians, Graham Taplin and our Oran Park host Wayne Horswell, stressed about the 130% qualifying rule and the ARDC's propensity to enforce it strictly. Okay, well, maybe I was the only one stressing since I hadn't seen Eastern Creek from that side of the fence before. In practice 1 it was all looking okay as Stephen Castles was running around 1:35's making the cutoff around 1:59. On only my fourth lap of this new track I crept into the 1:56's so it was all looking safe and sound, albeit with my usual lack of bottom end speed.

Around us were the usual suspects including Jason Laker, now astride a Zip 250, and my old sparring partner Mehmet Sinani pitted adjacent in his trusty old Eliminator, now 125-powered.

Photo courtesy Shauna Smith www.horswellracingteam.com.au

A minimum of 3 completed laps were required for qualifying on Friday arvo. Sounds easy, but anything can happen. I managed three with a best of 1:56.2, finding only half a second since prac, then my power valve started getting sticky and it revved about as spritely as a sewing machine, so I pulled into the pits to hear the track commentary proclaim that those dastardly 250 Inter's had found a whole 5 seconds since prac- Warren McIlveen posting a 1:30, with former V8 and Sports Sedan driver Darren Hossack in the 32's. That put our cutoff at around 1:57. Talk about skin of teeth. Wayne and Graeme had no dramas both in the 56's.

By the way, those 250's were lapping 2 seconds faster than the V8 Supercars. Us Rotaxians had no shame with times befitting a V8 Brute. This is on a power circuit!

Wayne, seeing a photo being taken of his spectacular new WILD DIGITAL banner, slips back into the darkness so as not to spoil it...Photo courtesy Shauna Smith www.horswellracingteam.com.au

At this point I had to sit back and take it all in. Just 50 metres away pitted the creme of Australian motorsport. It was quite a privalege, but there was still a job to do...keep it circulating.

With a jamming power valve it was back to the pits in Quali, just enough laps and speed in the bank to make the cut. Here I duplicate my posture from the previous night, this time without the cigar in hand...Photo courtesy Shauna Smith www.horswellracingteam.com.au

SATURDAY

Race 1

With Graeme Taplin off enjoying a quiet Sabbath it was left to Wayne and I to fight it out. We agreed that we were still sorting, and wanted to improve lap times, but we should have at least a few laps of wheel to wheel action to entertain the 30,000 plus crowd.

He needn't have worried since my thing was starting as atrociously as ever, and he was in turn 1 before I'd even passed the main grandstand. However about lap 3 as the leaders rounded me up I was honking along, dropping into the low 55's. Wayne was extremely cautious with the 250's allowing me to catch up and pip him for first out of the (2) Maxes. There was nothing boring about this. Traffic congestion at 160km/h is always interesting. Up front it was Warren McIlveen, Darren Hossack, Stephen Castles and Gary Pegaroro. The evergreen legend of Jason McIntyre rounded out the top five.

Wayne flies past me at the start like I'm waiting for the lights to get less red. Photo courtesy Shauna Smith www.horswellracingteam.com.au

All things being equal there was no doubt us Rotaxians would be last but what with a stack of dead gearbox karts littering the track in every session, meant we would still have some traffic behind us at the next start. Quickies like Wayne Sproston, John "Pelly" Pellicano, Dean Davies, Jason Laker, Ilya Harpas amongst them, to name only a few. As I say, probably a little too often, the little Max might be slow but they're as regular as All-Bran for breakfast. Having said that, I would never say no to hitching a ride in a 250, providing I had a full-time mechanic who wasn't me.

The amazing Jason McIntyre. Health problems notwithstanding...just try and keep him out of the front running Photo courtesy Shauna Smith www.horswellracingteam.com.au

Again, in between races was time to enjoy the atmosphere. Grant Denyer, racing in the Mini Challenge pitted opposite, came over to mingle with some superkarters. Evidently he vowed to get his short frame into one and have a go one day. V8 Supercar drivers wandered around the out-grid. This was a unique event.

As can clearly be seen from this photo, Wayno works tirelessly to promote superkarting
Photos courtesy Shauna Smith www.horswellracingteam.com.au

"Studying Law AND Commerce, you say..?"

Race 2

As Shakespeare once said, "too rich or too lean...that is the question". The thing meandered off the line, not sure if it was an internal combustion engine or Kevin Rudd formulating a policy. Before my rear wheels had passed the grid line all the DNF'ers from race 1 had screamed on by.

Again Wayne got seriously compromised by the lapping gearbox karts and again I was able to haul him in. We duked it out for Max honours, side by side for most of one lap, whilst dodging the oncoming 250 scud missiles. Fun? You betcha. Especially when Sonny Luca in the Giova Racing 125 Gearbox weaved his way through us like a rocket exiting the turn 9 hairpin while Wayne was looking over his shoulder to see where I was. Sonny popped over later to share a laugh about it.

Up from this time it was Hossack from McIlveen from Pegaroro, Prickett and Jason McIntyre. These guys were starting to get serious, and I had a ringside seat every four laps.

SA's Daniel Ramerman had a better race 2, coming home 6th. Photo courtesy Shauna Smith www.horswellracingteam.com.au

After the race I headed down to the V8 Pits to join the Britek boys and share the tension of V8 Supercar race 1 from their garage, with the kind permission of Rotax regular and Britek Sponsorship manager Mick Treloar, and Team Manager Chris Jewell, the Hyper driver on a flying visit to keep an eye on procedures. It was quite an experience, staring at the banks of monitors and data and learning how people keep cool under pressure.

That night it was back to my spartan accommodations- i.e. luxuriating in a hot tub in botanical garden setting at Kings School, with a cigar and fine conversation- Dr Timothy Hawkes and I solved the world's problems in one evening. Everything, that is, except Rotax low speed fuel mixtures.

SUNDAY

In race 1 on Saturday the conditions had come back to suit the kart, hence I sped up. On Sunday the reverse happened. We were not on until 12:50 so there was lots of waiting, meaning time to clean the power valve, and a couple of carby changes to try and get the thing to take off. There was plenty of room on the concrete pad behind the marquees to practice, and it showed a lot of promise. That was all to change, of course.

Race 3

A less disastrous start was paramount since Graeme Taplin was back and he's usually very quick. Ideally the three of us could go nose-tail for the whole race and provide some entertainment. We lined up for the big finale, and the Lagler machine took off worse than ever. Surprisingly, Graeme didn't nail me at the start, but got feisty coming out of turn 2 and 3. Plunging down the hill into the exciting 4 and 5, my favourite bit, I could hold him off, but the slow corner speed was useless and he pulled away. I'd get him back into 1 and 2, and it was good racing from there.

Photo courtesy Shauna Smith www.horswellracingteam.com.au

Eventually I had to watch him pull away as the leaders rounded us up. There was plenty to see. Karts were spinning off in unison through plumes of tyresmoke. McIlveen, Hossack and Castles were banging into each other as they came past me. It was exciting stuff. Too much excitement for poor Wayne Horswell however, who had an incident with Jason Laker in the 250, coming from behind after a DNF in race 2. With Jason and Wayne miscommunicating over the racing line into turn 2 the Zip Kart fired skyward over Wayne's left rear, damaging various bits on both karts and leaving tyre marks on Wayne's shoulder. Both drivers were fine however, and no hard feelings prevailed which was reflective of the spirit of this meeting.

The plunging approach to Turn 4. Steeper than it looks, and a favourite! We could run with the 250's through Turn 4.

You couldn't knock the action and it would have taken a hard person to say the superkarts didn't fully entertain the strong V8 crowd. Our marquee was never free of crowds looking at the pint sized rockets.

After fighting my way out of the track before the V8 Finale, it was back to Kings School to relax, or so I thought. This time, Dr. Hawkes was having a catered get-together for School benefactors on the lawns. I was tragically underdressed but upon the insistence of the good Doctor I was dragged around and introduced. After all, some of the patrons had spent the day at the V8 Supercars! Naturally they were spellbound at my tales of high speed bravery (mostly embellished), and eventually dispersed to leave me and The Headmaster to drink various beers, smoke more cigars and solve even more world problems.

Once the NSW Government fixes the Hume Highway so that you can actually drive on it without stopping every five minutes, the drive to Sydney will be almost as good as the arrival. We can only cross our fingers that the NSW Superkart group will be able to score the same support status again, with even more numbers, but either way another trip or two to NSW will be on the cards in 08.

All credit must go to John Pellicano, Clinton Brown, Phil Eggins, Wayne and a host of others who helped out on the day in what must have been trying conditions at times, and those who courted the ARDC for eons to score this gig.

NATSOFT RESULTS HERE

With additional thanks to Wayne Horswell and Shauna Smith for their hospitality and help! www.horswellracingteam.com

MORE PHOTOS HERE