Well, what a fantastic end to the weekend coming home for Australia in 2nd position!
Friday we started practice on a wet track! In the wet and slippery conditions I was over .5 of a second faster than anyone, if it was to rain again on the weekend I recon I would have dominated! I had a further two practice sessions and could only manage to get within .4 of a second of the fast guys in the dry, but Jordie finished off the day by making a major seat and chassis adjustment for saturday practce and qualifying.
On Saturday we had our qualifying. I was only .2 of a second slower than pole position qualifying in 6th position. The chassis changes we made the night prior made the kart even better to drive, and we definitely knew we had a great race package. We finished Saturday with an awesome opening ceremony to the event with an introduction and stage interview with all the foreign frivers, and heaps of traditional food (barbecued Japanese style) to celebrate…. I wasn’t a fan of the beef tongue!
Sunday included my two races for the weekend, one being a 10 lap qualifying heat and a final of 15 laps. On the start of the qualifying heat I jumped into 3rd right at the start. By half race distance the leader had quite a gap on the rest of us in the top 5. I then moved up into second position holding it for the rest of the race.
For the final I started on the front row, second place. Straight away, I moved into first position at the start. The driver who started pole and I battled it out for the first two laps swapping positions at nearly every corner. By lap 3 the he passed me and had a little more kart speed to drive away. By the end of the 15 lap final the leader had around a 1.5 second gap to me, third a further 2 seconds behind. Once again, I got to spray champagne all over the podium, but the most flattering thing was some of the Japanese media wanting to talk to me and put me in their magazines!!!
I have really enjoyed this experience and thank Lee Hanatschek and Adam Wolfendon for organising this amazing opportunity for me. Thank you to everyone from Shamick Racing, Xzuit and J&A Kart Tuning for all their help and support.
Last of all, my biggest thank you is to everyone who has donated to help me get over here. Without any of your support, I would never have made it.
Cheers, Juzzy!
