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Weather at Balnarring |
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Hot News |
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Jan 2009 |
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Oliver’s Lake, Horesham |
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Mar 2009 |
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2009 Australian blokart Open |
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Supported by Melbourne Metro Windsports |
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Oliver’s Salt Lake, near Horsham Melbourne Blokart Club and Horsham Blokart Centre hosted a three day event over the Australia Day weekend at Oliver’s Salt Lake, 12 km north of Natimuk near Horsham. Where do I begin? What a fantastic weekend! What fantastic weather! What fantastic winds! What a fantastic blokarting venue! What fantastic people!!!! We arrived in Horsham at 10:30am and was able to drop into and get our cabin early at Wimmera Lakes Caravan Park. We quickly off-loaded some gear then headed out some 30kms to Oliver’s Lake (great directions, Rod - spot on). After turning onto Duchembegarra Rd I was blown away by the sight of the lake shimmering like a mirage in the sunshine with a couple of blokarters already flying around the lake. I could not wait to have my turn. We quickly set up the club trailer and had a greet and meet with Rod who is the Horsham local. A pilots briefing and introduction was called with a brief overview of the weekend by Ben. We headed out onto to the lake for the first time and it was a little unnerving for me having not sailed on one before. It looked firm from the distance but due to 35mm of rain that fell a week out from the event, just under the crust was like a skid pan in places of the lake. A triangular course was set at the middle of the southern end of the lake. The wind gods played their part with a constant 10kts of breeze with some nice gusts to about 14/15kts keeping everyone entertained. All the 5.5m rigs had disappeared by the start of the 2nd race. Due to numbers we only ran production and performance with no weight restrictions. Five races were run on Saturday with a very mixed bag of results. Greg Devine was very dominant in production with four bullets and a DNS, but was pushed hard by every one in the fleet who were all in a podium position a some stage of the racing. Performance division was very close all day long with Jon Guymer just coming out on top. After five races it was agreed to end the days proceedings and recover by the pool giving people time to freshen up for the evening. Evening tea was organised by Rod at the Horsham Sports & Community Club followed by lots of conversations of the days racing and everyone’s backgrounds. Sunday dawned and we were greeted with more sun and more winds where we proceeded to knock over nine races and still have time have a photo and film shoot with the local papers and TV film crew. Another mixed bag of results for the day with Production class getting very willing and a couple of wheel to wheel nudges in the clinches. The most interesting set of results was with Rod Jenkinson who started the weekend on a Production kart with some average results to setting up on Sunday with a 5.5m rig and big foot balloon wheels where he proceeded to consistently lead the whole fleet home. Unbelievable or what?!!!!!!!!!! Sunday evening came and the crew set up the camp at the caravan park where we had a BBQ and proceeded to watch the tennis from the back of Greg’s camping trailer whilst watching satellites tracking the crystal clear night. On Monday, we travelled to the lake. There was no wind with a very lame forecast. We decided to have coffees, total up the results, and have a presentation before most drifted off home. Results In closing I would like to thank all those who did their little bits to organise and help run this event. Without you guys and girls, it would not have happened. We (Melbourne Blokart Club and Horsham Blokart Centre) would like to make this an annual event, so keep your eyes out for further information Report by Graham Oliver |
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