It's all very exciting approaching a new season with a new toy, once you can get through the mad, stress-filled frantic rush of last-minute work. Once the visor is down and the scenery starts moving, we all remember why it is that we torture over these little machines whilst forgetting how many kids we have. That reminds me...now that all the pre-season preparation is mostly done, I must book that family holiday...

Hyper factory driver and KartSportNews.com scribe Mark Wicks: "Hey Paddy, it might never happen!"

Fortunately the standard nitpicking by the anti-Hyper club before first practice amused me sufficiently to distract from any worry and we finally hit the boiling hot Phillip Island Grand Prix circuit. Boy, did that sea look inviting. My daughter was jet-skiing with friends around the corner...

QUALIFYING

Late, of course. But with PIARC having a down-on-numbers day, our sessions eventually turned around rather quickly. It was over in a flash. I had tragic slow-corner engine speed, so exiting MG and Honda was losing me stacks. I was around 4 seconds off the pace. Apart from that, it was all rather promising as the chassis was sticking in ways that last years' just didn't.

RACE 1

Surprise surprise, red flag on the second lap. Martin Latta in the 250 National had run out of brakes over Lukey Heights. Pardon the pun, but that guy must have walked under a "Latta". Before that, Clark and Filliponi had stopped trackside with mechanical dramas. I had a typically dreary start watching all and sundry fly by, so I wasn't looking forward to doing it again.

And, surprise surprise, the restart was a dog's breakfast. Nobody knew what was going on, restart positions were left purely to fate. I can let that go as there are some good, hardworking volunteers running the meetings as best they can. But it does make fussing over style of race numbers look even more pathetic and petty.

At the restart it all settled down but the sight of Wixy disappearing from view was to become common. Still struggling with low down revs I was finding some pace and setting my sights on David Byrne, with whom I had some spirited dices at Winton last year. Clark's teammate Peter Howard was up front in second. That was how it finished. Wixy, Howard, Byrne, me.

David Byrne. I'm not sure about the font on those race numbers...are they legal??!

Up front in featherweights it was the very fit Jon Grant showing the younger guys how it's done, from Brad Stebbing and Peter Gazzolla.

All photos on this page were taken by

RACE 2

Rod Clark, the Prez

Again Mark Wicks cruised off, making it look easy. As early as lap 2 Rod Clark passed me out of MG recovering from his heat 1 DNF. The sight of him going past like I was standing still had me wishing I was related to his engine tuner. David Byrne was still my target, but sprint karter turned road racer Andrew Jackman also managed to usurp me and I trailed in 6th.

As if Jackman scoring the last pair of green race boots on planet earth wasn't enough of a blow for me! In fairy-weights it was surprising newcomer Peter Strangis from Hyper driver Brad Stebbing and Jon Grant.

RACE 3

I finally took Dean's advice and dropped a leaner carby jet in. The fear of burning out an engine with over lean fuel on a 38 degree day could not outweight the fear of being stupidly slow out of low speed corners. I should have done it last year. This time, it looked like I could nail Byrnie.


Dicing with David Byrne. It was like this for most of the race

We had a monumental dice from lap 3. At one stage, from Siberia to Lukey Heights side by side. Exiting Honda I didn't see him try and surge up alongside on the right hand side as I moved right to take Siberia, and he kept his boot in, with most wheels on the grass. It was tenacious stuff and great racing. The extra speed took us past light Shaun Trounson who was having grip problems on old Dunlops.

I eventually nailed him and achieved another fourth. Up front, Wixy did it again from Howard and Clark. Dean Crooke was having a Barry Crocker of a day, with overheating. He had a "flame-out" on the grid of race 3 and didn't start.

The master

I was more than happy with this result but felt spent, as though I couldn't do any better. Then I was told things were running so smoothly, there would be a fourth heat. But it wouldn't count for points. At the time I didn't know it, but I'd been pipped by Byrne for the last "podium" place. By one point.

RACE 4

This race, for me anyway, saw a repeat of race 3 with the tenacious David Byrne making life difficult as we grappled over fourth place. Eventually I nailed him but then had to contend with the equally tenacious green-boot-thief Andrew Jackman. On the final lap we left MG side by side and stayed that way all the way to the chequered flag. We approached a Junior driver Zack Jones, who was uncannily fast on the straight, giving Jackman a nice dose of slipstream and leaving me out in the air. I suspect it was the superior aero of the Hyper Racer that saved me, and I crossed the line barely inches ahead.

Great stuff.

It was bittersweet for the Hyper factory, with Dean's woes meaning heavy Mark Wicks was actually contending with him for the outright win in this final, non-championship race. Still, you can't win 'em all and Wixy looks like showing even greater strength in the Heavy class than did Dean last year.

But as I always say, this is the closest formula of racing in the country. Anything could happen. Anyone could surprise.