Xander Clements January 18, 2015

 

      Returning to the United States, the Sim Karting World Championship IAME X30 Senior Challenge headed to Beaumont, California, to a lost-but-now-revived track by the name of Moran Raceway Park. Moran held countless national and international level events in the early 2000s, but the property being sold without the consent of the track owners who were leasing it caused it to fall to ruin. With some hard work over the past few weeks, the SKWC was able to bring this track back to life on the sim and utilize for the penultimate round of the 2015 X30 Senior Championship.

 

       In Qualifying, Corrie Hiatt (Comp Kart) was the man to beat laying down a blistering lap time with over two tenths on a gap to the next running kart. His teammate, Brenden Baker (Comp Kart) was that kart posting a time just quick enough to best Cory Hayes (Italkart) for second place, with Andre Castro (FA Kart) out-doing his teammate in Xander Clements (FA Kart) on his last lap to claim fourth place. In Heat 1, Hayes and Clements made contact, causing Xander and Carson Clements (FA Kart) to spin in the first turn. The damage was so prevalent that Carson was forced to retire, and that incident combined with a failed merging attempt back to the racing surface that damaged Ian Bushey (Italkart), Cory was placed to the back of the results and sent to the LCQ.

 

       In Heat 2, another Italkart KartSport driver made an overzealous move on lap 1, with the driver behind the wheel being Phillippe Denes (Italkart). His attempted pass simply did not work and took out Ryan Harris (Italkart) and blocked the track for the rest of the field. Denes was issued a thirty second penalty for the time that Harris lost, pushing Harris back up into a transfer spot and knocking Denes down to the LCQ. Brenden Baker took the win after fending off a hard-charging Andre Castro, with Corrie Hiatt taking a much more comfortable victory in Heat 1 over Matt Solarczyk (FA Kart). 

 

       In the extremely controversial LCQ, Phillippe Denes put on a clinic by punching his ticket to the Final by over thirty seconds. Gresham Wagner (FA Kart) was running second early on when he was intentionally taken out by Marco Eakins (Gillard) about halfway through the race, causing Wagner to DNF. Eakins was issued a series ban and a DQ from the event, but Alex Frazer (Praga) was still able to complete the race in second position. Frazer, however, only was able to make it for the LCQ, and felt that Wagner deserved the spot more than him. A move out of nothing but class, Frazer graciously gave up his spot in the final to Wagner, the next best finishing kart in the LCQ. Cory Hayes was unable to even start the session with a technical DQ on the grid, marring him to a last place points position.

 

       In an attempt to out-do the extreme behavior in the LCQ, all of the drivers in the Final were determined to put on a show, and they did. Corrie Hiatt got out to a modest gap over Andre Castro and Matt Solarczyk early on, although the spotlight was placed on the battle from 4th through 7th place between Adam Rylance (CRG), Xander Clements, Ian Bushey, and Phillippe Denes. After a lot of shuffling in the first few laps, Clements was able to get away from the group and start hunting down Solarczyk, his KartSport East teammate. After making the pass, Solarczyk miscalculated Clements's line into the next turn, spinning out and losing a couple of positions. This allowed Bushey to get into fourth, where he would finish the event. Corrie Hiatt did not have much of a challenge in passing from Andre Castro, but still was able to pick up the victory by a decent gap. Clements held on to third place for his first podium of the season, and Matt Solarczyk battled back to fifth place where he would finish the event.

 

3rd Place Finisher: Xander Clements #136 (KartSport North America East) "With a wreck in my heat race that put me starting the Final in the midst of the hornet's nest, I figured that I would be involved in some kind of an incident in the first couple of turns. Luckily, though, nearly the entire field made it through the first lap without contact, and I actually had a good start to the event. If I didn't drop a wheel early and allow Ian [Bushey] and Phil [Denes] to get by, I probably would have been able to get to Matt [Solarczyk] earlier and take a shot at Andre. All is well though, and I'm quite pleased with the result. It was a good confidence boost for the team and we are coming out for the win at Mooresville in three weeks."

 

2nd Place Finisher: Andre Castro #104 (KartSport North America East) "I forgot to put on fresh tires for the Final, and by the end of the race there I was really sliding. Actually, a couple laps from the finish, I was able to put down a good lap, but my kart was sliding around so much that I was really inconsistent. Overall, the setup was good. I had a really good fight with Brenden [Baker] in the heat, and that's why I'm really disappointed that we got together at the beginning there. I was really trying to push him to the lead from second place, and we touched going into turn one, and it was really slight contact, but the way the lag is it kind of sent him off. So, overall, it was a bit of a disappointing day, seeing as we got contact with Brenden and we didn't get all that we could in the Final. I felt that I could have kept with Corrie [Hiatt] on fresh tires, and maybe made a couple less mistakes. But, I guess it was alright. We got 2nd and 3rd for KartSport [North America] and FA, which that's really great. I'd like to thank Xander [Clements] for providing me with the setup and putting me on his team. It's great that we got our first podium of the season, and it's good that we got two drivers on the podium as well. It was good to unsettle J3 a little bit there, and hopefully next week we can do really well at a track that we all know, GoPro Motorplex. Again, I'd like to thank Xander and the admins of SKWC for putting on a great show, and I'm looking forward to be back next race."

 

1st Place Finisher: Corrie Hiatt #142 (J3 Competition) "I'm honestly overjoyed. I can't begin to explain how awesome this feels. I've been on about a two season winless streak, and this is, absolutely fantastic. I'd like to thank thank J3 Competition, Lucky Design, Arai Helmets, and Birel Factory, for giving us such great support, and I'd like to thank Braden Eves for putting me on this team. I'm really sorry that Brenden Baker couldn't have been up there with us -- he had an incident up there on the start. Overall, I'm extremely happy, and I can't wait for the next round."

 

Official Results:

1st) Corrie Hiatt #142 (Comp Kart)

2nd) Andre Castro #104 (FA Kart)

3rd) Xander Clements #136 (FA Kart)

4th) Ian Bushey #137 (Italkart)

5th) Matt Solarczyk #112 (FA Kart)

6th) Adam Rylance #140 (CRG)

7th) Phillippe Denes #198 (Italkart)

8th) Gresham Wagner #105 (FA Kart)

9th) Brenden Baker #109 (Comp Kart)

10th) Ryan Harris #122 (Italkart)

11th) Carson Clements #124 (FA Kart)

12th) Connor Tebbe #114 (FA Kart)

13th) Alex Frazer #151 (Praga)

14th) Marco Eakins* #118 (Gillard)

15th) Cory Hayes #111 (Italkart)