Xander Clements November 9, 2014

 

      As the SKWC KF Junior division marked past the halfway point in its current season, the series headed to Uruguay, South America, where the series would make its debut at the historic Circuit Luis P. Serra. This track, casually referred to as San Jose, has been notorious for having extremely-close qualifying times and fast laps throughout the race. This was proven true in Final Practice, with Cory Hayes (ItalKart) barely topping Corrie Hiatt (BirelART), Brenden Baker (Tony Kart), and Braden Eves (Tony Kart) in the time charts to head into Qualifying as the leader of the fast group. With a total of 14 karts showing up to do battle on the short circuit, qualifying was split into three different groups of 4 and 5, with Hayes coming out on top after it all by being the first driver to break into the 40 second bracket all weekend. He was followed by Baker in second, Eves in third, and Xander Clements (FA Kart) with a solid fourth place qualifying run, after placing initially in thie middle group. Corrie Hiatt rounded out the Top 5 with a time far off his usual pace, after having some unexpected bad luck in the session.

 

      As Hayes brought the field down to the line in the PreFinal, both J3 drivers were poised to take a shot at the top spot early. Braden Eves, however, overdrove the entry to turn four, locked up his brakes, and went for a spin. Baker, his J3 Competition teammate, had nowhere to go and spun into him as well, with the rest of the field swerving to avoid the chaos. Out of the midst came Andre Castro (FA Kart), who had not shown much pace in practice or qualifying, but was always right near the leaders. Castro would hold on to second and keep that spot to lock him on to a front row starting spot in the Final event, with Hiatt coming home a close third and Braden Eves in fourth, right behind. Xander Clements continued a combined streak of bad luck and self-induced trauma by losing control of his kart in front of Ian Bushey (ItalKart) and Florian Godoard (CRG), obtaining so much damage that he marred him back to a 9th place finish. Bushey took full advantage of Clements's misfortune to finish fifth, with Godard in sixth, respectively.

 

       Moving into the Final, Cory Hayes looked to repeat his dominance in the series and clinch the top spot in the Driver's championship. Andre Castro held his own on the outside on the start, although Corrie Hiatt was able maneuver his BirelART around Castro's FA Kart to take over second place. Braden Eves eventually got around Castro as well, moving into third and drafting with Castro to catch back up to Hiatt and Hayes. As the laps wound down, the four up front slowly began to drift to three, as Castro started to fall off near the end of the event, until finally his tires would give out from underneath him on a skid, surrendering fourth place to his KartSport North America teammate Xander Clements on the last lap. Hiatt had a couple of chances to overtake Cory Hayes around the middle of the event, but was never able to fully take advantage of the opportunities that arose. As Eves hunted Hiatt down by the end of the race, time ran out on both of their chances to knock off Cory Hayes, allowing the Aussie to clinch his first ever SKWC Championship and finish out yet another perfect points day. With Clements coming in fourth behind Eves in third and Hiatt in second, Castro would battle back to retain fifth spot and round out the Top 5.

 

3rd Place Finisher: Braden Eves #41 (Tony Kart) "In the races, KRP, with the tire wear and everything, you have to be really smooth, and if you slide the rear just a little bit, it will almost ruin your entire race. So, I just had to be really smooth with my hands, and make sure not to slide the rear at all. I was pushing really hard the entire race; after the first lap I made a mistake, and lost a good bit of time, but by the end, I was right up on Cory, and ending off the with the fastest time was good as well."

 

2nd Place Finisher: Corrie Hiatt #42 (BirelART) "It [This weekend] started out, well, I had a crappy qualifying - I couldn't get in a lap, and that was my fault; I take responsibility for that, as the BirelART team gave me a fantastic go kart to drive. I think that the PreFinal really showed my strength. I was able to make a very strong start in the PreFinal, and setting up the go kart to come in very late in the PreFinal, I ended up setting the fastest time. We tried to carry that momentum into the final, with a fantastic start going from third to second, and from there I was just trying to hunt down Cory Hayes, who has had fantastic pace this entire week. We were struggling a little bit about halfway through, and finally Braden caught up to me and I had to get defensive. I'm happy with the result and looking forward to next week."

 

1st Place Finisher: Cory Hayes #11 (ItalKart) "I reckon if they [Corrie Hiatt, Brenden Baker, Braden Eves and Andre Castro] had been on my bumper from lap one, they would have probably gotten through. I made a setup mistake, and then cooked my tires in the Final. Corrie Hiatt and Braden Eves had really good pace in the Final, and I held them up for a good half of it and still went on to win the race by a coupel kart lengths, which was quite good, along with winning my first SKWC championship."

 

Official Results:

1st) Cory Hayes #11 (ItalKart)

2nd) Corrie Hiatt #42 (BirelART)

3rd) Braden Eves #41 (Tony Kart)

4th) Xander Clements #36 (FA Kart)

5th) Andre Castro #4 (FA Kart)

6th) Adam Rylance #40 (CRG)

7th) Brendan Cronin #8 (CRG)

8th) Florian Godard #2 (CRG)

9th) Ian Bushey #37 (ItalKart)

10th) Gresham Wagner #5 (FA Kart)

11th) Elliott Budzinski #91 (Tony Kart)

12th) Brenden Baker #16 (Tony Kart)

13th) Carson Clements #24 (FA Kart)

14th) Myles Rowe #6 (Top Kart)