Auckland Blokart Club News
Live News from the Auckland Blokart Club. www.abc.gen.nzMonday, October 18, 2010
The Kiwis retained their Performance Champs Ranking!
Results are available here.
ABC podium members were Russell & Nicko for Heaveyweight, Paul Beckett for Superheavy.
Gabe 1st & Angus 3rd from he Bay for Lightweights, Theo 2nd for Super Heavies. NZ struggled in the middleweights, with Luke, Grant, Nick and Jenny putting in their best performances.
All packing up now after a great night out.
More videos on the World Blokart site.
Grant
Sunday, October 17, 2010
A good day for thw ABC team atthe orlds. Winds of 25 - 30 knts meant some spectacular sailing on a beach which is now smooth and fast.
Paul Beckett took 4 out of 4 in the Super Heavies with Theo not far behind.
The Heavyweights had a great battle with the Kiwis filling the first 3 and in one case 4 places in every race. Russell went 1, 2, 2, 1 to take the overall lead and Nicko with 2, 1, 3, 2 is a close second. Alex also took a win and Bruce is holding in there with a couple of 4ths.
The lightweights are also staying in touch with Gabe and Angus both having some good races and Luke and Grant are also hanging in the front bunch of the middleweights.
Tomorrow is back to the park for 3 hours and then finish off with another 3 hours on the beach. Wind forecast is for light to moderate so the series is still wide open.
Good videos of all the races on the Worlds Website referred to below!
Grant & Russell
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Back on the beach today at 11:30 am. Sailing was extended to 5 pm to allow time for more races.
But the wind did not cooperate. We have yet to get in a single full round!We commenced with the restart of the midleweight performance class - which was in very light wind. Luke form the Bay did best with 6th.Then the next prodution race (with no NZers).
The next race was another production race -
Back to the beach again tomorrow. It is looking windy but wet. Sunday isn't looking good with a forecast of little wind.
Please see http://www.blokartworlds2010.com/ for some great video and ABC membrs!
Cheers, Grant
Friday, October 15, 2010
While waiting for the official start we had a demo of the "Jet Blokart" created by the Dutch Jan Meijer. Ideal for days like this when the wind lets us down.
Then we had a Team NZ group photo. Included was Steve Barlow & Mark Trotter from Dubai. Other NZers missing from the photo were Nick Murray, Tammo Bremer, from Switzerland and member of the Canturbury Blokat Club, and Steve Harvey from the UK.
Sailing finally got underway at 4:20 pm! We had all arrived at 8 am for a full days sailing, and expected to be sailing under lights at 8 pm.
First up were the Performance Heavyweights - Russel 2nd, Nicko 4th sailed in light conditions.
Performance Superheavies saw Theo 1st, Paul B 3rd.
Lightweights sailed in the same race and saw Angus 2nd & Gabe 4th.
The final race of the day was Performance Middleweights, which was called off before the dial-up completed, and the pilots waited in their start for 10 minutes. The start was mostly wheeling and was called off at the second mark with Grant running 2nd at the time.
Tomorrow we expect to be back on the beach, but rain may accompany the wind.
Cheers, Grant
Thursday, October 14, 2010
The plans are to go tomorrow to the concrete container park where we can sail in lighter wind. Some of the NZ Team went hand had a look. This track is about twice he size of Ardnore. A bit uphill in places but imminently sailable. Grant, Theo, Paul, Gordon, Nick had a quick go on Grant & Tho's karts, which just hapened to be in the van - funny that.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
The wind came in today for the practice - and there were 70 plus karts
on the beach by 10AM. The wind was 10 Knots plus with most on 5.5m to
handle the soft sand. All the Kiwis now have their karts and we have
4 expat NZers from Dubai, UK and Austria joining us.
It was much more even today with Luke, Russell & Nicko now well tuned
up and getting used to the beach. There were a few capsizes today as
sailors overpowered in the soft sand. But there were no accidents or
problems that I saw.
Weigh-in and Pilots introduction takes place this evening, so we'll
see what weight groups we are in.
The sailing area is quite small, but great for spectators.
Team NZ is very conspicuous in their team colours - jackets, sails,
hats, flags.
But it is going to be tight and fast racing tomorrow!
Grant
Sunday, October 03, 2010
Ardmore, Sunday 3rd.
Nice day, nice breeze, meet about 1 pm for sail around the track. Russell
Friday, October 01, 2010
Belgium Bloakrt 2010 Worlds Update #1
Watch the live news (here) on the ABC web site to see what’s happening in the build-up to and during the 2010 Worlds event.
Details of the Team NZ participants are on www.bai.co.nz.
Team ABC has a very strong team with current World Champs Russell (Smokin) Harray and Dave (ORCA) Bush both making it to defend their titles. All except Alex from Hamilton are staying at the ABC Team’s village in Ostend – where we have rented two adjoining houses 100m from the beach in a tasteful holiday area. The Guru and the Bay team are just down the same road, and we have Gordon & Anne from the Bay staying with us too. So Team NZ is well represented and brought together by the NZBAI – we all have black sailing team jackets with the NZBAI Blokart fern proudly displayed.
While some of the team set off early and took in the British Blokart Champs, and did very well (Barry first in the heavies - but can’t make the Worlds – but at least we know where we rank; Nicko second; Paul second in Superheavies – with Theo from the Bay 1st – and a member of Team NZ), the ABC people have kept up a tight training regime, sailing every weekend for the last month – and even some beach training for the TVNZ cameras. ORCA is off to the far north to get in some more beach time – but the windward-leewards at Ardmore have honed up the sailing skills of Team ABC too. We won’t mention the ranking of the stars– so that they don’t attract undue attention at the event, but there are many. We have fielded a great team. Helping with the training have been the current podium place getters from 2008! There is a lot of knowledge being shared here – as it will be during the event itself.
The first of the Team arrive early on Friday week for some dawn practice on the beach!
We will also have Ross V liaising with Sail-world.com who will carry articles from the Worlds contributed by the NZ team during the event.
We’ll keep you posted here!
Grant
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