Race Report (Now with 25% more silly captions!) By the time dusk descended on Goulburn, the droves of drivers had been dazzled by Dean's dominance. Probably a good thing "Goulburn" doesn't start with a "D". Then my intro would have looked really stupid. But I can be forgiven for trying to eulogise Dean Crooke's total clean sweep at Wakefield Park September 21. Pole, 4 out of 4 wins and a lap record. It was a sight to behold.

The plan was to drag the whole family up the Hume for this race meeting preceding a family getaway to Pretty Beach (near Gosford on the scenic NSW north coast). However in early '07 I'd sold my chariot trailer in favour of utilising Lagler's Ford Transit van to transport billykarts, in between the odd German Floorsanding machine. This method precludes transporting any more than one extra person.

But I'd sold the tralier to a good mate, and he lent it back to me free of charge. Great scam, huh? (My thanks to Derham Transport of Lara, who had to spend a weekend without their trail bikes).

With only one set of tyres for the whole meeting I did a bit of prac on Saturday but sat out the final session. It was worth it to see GT Photography's Gary Trounson having a go in son Shaun's Hyper. You go Gary!!

Chris Jewell in the McLaughlin Freight Lines Hyper chasing Deano in Saturday practice. Unfortunately none of us would ever get this close in a race

SUNDAY, SEPT 21. QUALIFYING

The normally droll and humourless drivers briefing was made interesting by the mention that the biggest problem today, for drivers pulling off the track, would be tiger snakes. Somebody rightly mentioned that there are hand signals for "fire crew required" or "tow vehicle required" but none for "angry tiger snake in attendance".

A red flagged session saw me only in the 1min 10's, with polesitter Dean way up the road in the low 7's, and 5 other Rotaxes between us. In fairness to us, ahem, more senior blokes, the NSW club mostly doesn't run weight classes so it was every waif and porker for themselves. Chris Jewell pipped me to get into the 9's, and the only other genuine heavies up ahead were Alan Dodge and Graham Taplin. So I was in the right mix but would have liked to be a little faster.

Hyper newcomer and ex sprinter David Sheedy was driving Wicksy's "old" number 75 and did well to get into the 11's in his first look at a rather techincal little circuit. Wicksy, meanwhile, with his Schumacher-esque career under the belt, has retired to his apartment in Monaco to oversee the ghost writing of his biography.

David "Danger" Sheedy

NSW regular and all-round good bloke Wayne Horswell was having a torrid time in his Hypered-up Arrow, the beast was not responding to tuning.

There were a host of sprint karters, new to road racing. It turned out their inexperience would be the least of our problems.

RACE 1

So far I had managed to avoid a bent axle which seems to be my regular occurance for 2008. Still, the day was young.

At the rolling start, with gearbox karts at an agreed gap up ahead, the Rotaxis were (theoretically) left up to their own devices. Dean disappeared up ahead followed by Vickers, O'Brien and Dodgy, while Graeme Taplin stretched out a lead on CJ and I. Graeme was a little dismayed at my sudden turn of speed at our last meeting at Wakefield, so this was sweet tonic for him.

Having just passed Jeff Hanley and zeroing in on Shaun in the closing laps

Despite the best intentions of all concerned a slow moving gearbox kart still managed to find it's way into our mix. CJ and I were getting seriously baulked through the twisty bits, with me being anxious not to harpoon the back of the McLaughlin Freighliners machine under brakes. Going into the fishhook on lap 2 the gearbox kart, apparently fresh out of grip and/or talent, spun lazily into my right rear corner. Kaboom! And what do you know- I had another bent axle. However, I didn't realise it at the time- partly due to the adrenaline, and partly due to being paralysed with rage. Having been slowed down to a crawl I took off after the lost positions. Jeff Hanley I passed, Shaun Trounson I didn't. The damage was limited with a 9th place and a 1min9.0840. I'd found over 1 sec a lap since qualifying.

RACE 2

The warmup lap was when I realised the axle was bent. I could see no point in stopping, and besides, it tends to vibrate less the faster you go. To make matters worse I fuelled up at the start, meaning poor Chris Jewell was held back, not wanting to pass me before the line. Graeme Taplin had no such reservations and blasted by, by which time I signalled to those behind. It's one of those things- you don't know whether to pull aside or whether the problem will clean up any second.

One of the gearbox karts which didn't slow us down! david Yuill ran second all day and won the trophy race in the 125gbox.

I re-passed Shaun Trounson and Geoff Kennedy, then Anthony Gattellaro in the smart looking Goldkart nailed both CJ and I. CJ, ever the motorsport professional, could see I had some extra speed on board so he let me by to take off after Taplin.

Anthony Gattellaro

More gearbox kart comedy capers went on up ahead. One lone box kart held up a group of four Rotaxes, Taplin, Dodge, Gattellaro and Vickers, so much that I caught up to the lot of them in three corners, from 100m behind. In the inevitable melee, Taplin went dust tracking at the famous fishhook which let through to have a crack at Alan Dodge.

It wasn't to be and I came home 6th with a 1min 8.3. Another whole second gained from the previous session. Meanwhile, Shaun Trounson, in drought-stricken Goulburn, had managed to find the only puddle within a 10 km radius.

Get busy, Dad!

RACE 3

Having finally worked out that my axle was bent, to much chuckling within the Hyper camp, Dean Crooke agreed to apply his advanced engineering capabilites in assiting me to correct it, i.e. he bashed the thing with all the might of a big burly medieval blacksmith.

Just when all looked lost, Dean's expert engineering mind concluded that a bigger hammer was required, and viola, the axle went from being noticeably wobbly to being almost perfect.

In race 3 I went out and did a 1min8 dead, the third fastest lap of the day, leaving Shaun Trounson and Chris Jewell wondering if they should let Dean bash the crap out of their rear axles with a massive big hammer.

The result didn't look so great- 8th place, but 3rd through to 8th was covered by barely over a second. Again, the man with the magnanamous motorsport brain Chris Jewell waved me through to chase the pack, but passing from there was difficult.

1 min 8.0136, yeah baby!

TROPHY RACE- 10 laps

The start was a lot better this time but still, going into the dicey turn 2 there were so many slow vehicles around I thought the local Amish community had come out for a Sunday trot. I dropped a spot and followed Chris, Graeme Taplin, Dodgy, Gattellaro and lord knows who else. It was quite an intense battle.

Then we came across what must have been the dumbest thing I have ever seen. In the fishhook, a corner which has claimed many spinners, a gearbox kart had spun smack bingo in the middle of the track right at the entry to the corner. The driver was out of his kart trying to push it.

This put paid to CJ's race as he disappeared off stage right, along with a few others. The only thing which saved me was that I had committed to the inside line, behind a queue of braking karts, not to pass anyone but to avoid a rear-ender. I was able to jink to the left of the pusher who had either forgotten where he was, or had received a very dodgy instruction from a track marshal. Or maybe he saw a tiger snake.

Either way he was lucky to keep everything below his knees.

Admittedly, this put me up a few spots having displaced CJ, Anthony Gattellaro who was charging back hard behind me, and others. I had a good look at the rejuvinated Taplin and ahead of him, Alan Dodge, Brand and Vickers. Graeme had an off on lap 8 which got me closer to Dodgy. I clawed back the gap and crossed the line a few hundredths of a second, or half a nosecone at 160km/h, behind. Gattellaro was less than a second behind me a closing fast. We were lapped just before the line by the outright winner David Yuill.

5th place and a 1min 8.2. Phew. Good result and with only one genuine heavy ahead of me.

As always, a great time with a great bunch of people in the NSW club. Of course, we were the most entertaining category on the day. But as much as I dig these guys all I cared about after Race 4 was getting away for that family holiday. One day later, it couldn't have been a more stark contrast from the grease, smoke and mayhem of Wakefield; seashore lapping at our feet, a sleepy town, feeding Kookas from our balcony, and generally doing what I enjoy doing most- NOTHING.

And no tiger snakes.

Next up we say a FINAL farewell to the magnificent Oran Park, November 8th.