GRAND FINAL 2008 - Day 25.11.2008
Tuesday the 26th of November dawned bright
and clear after a night of rain in Southern Italy. After
a couple days of nervous anticipation, today the drivers
and teams finally get to put all that energy to work preparing
their karts for the week’s racing action.
The kart raffle starts early in the morning
sun as drivers are given their kart to use. The early
start will allow the teams to make all necessary adjustments
in plenty of time so those that wish can spend a last
few moment in the seaside town of Otranto before attending
the official welcoming party hosted by BRP-Rotax in the
evening.
As the kart raffle takes place, one-by-one
the karts are rolled away on their trolleys back to the
pits. It is interesting to think of the destiny of these
karts. While all are destined for great racing action,
some will see more battles than others. Some karts will
see off-track excursions, some are destined for great
passes and a few may see many battle scars requiring a
parts replacement or two. No matter what each kart goes
through, one thing is sure, they will all be involved
in intense competition. And, ultimately, three of the
karts, one CRG DD2, one Maranello MAX kart and one Zanardi
Junior MAX chassis will end up carrying a worthy driver
to a Rotax World Championship.
By mid-afternoon many teams had completed
their build process and were on to scrutineering for preliminary
legality checks. Scrutineering is also a time for drivers
to present their safety gear including driving suits,
helmets, shoes and gloves. This is also the time drivers
will be heading to the official scales to check the weight
of their karts so they may prepare the necessary lead
ballast to bring their karts up to the minimum competition
weight.
The welcoming party was held at the restaurant
facility on site at the track. Welcoming the teams were
several dignitaries from ROTAX in attendance as well as
representatives from the La Conca International Circuit.
During the welcoming party, a first-time
event was added to the festivities at this year’s
Grand Finals – the tire changing competition. The
event pitted over two-dozen entrants each representing
their home country. The format is for each entrant to
dismount four tires, then re-mount all four in the fastest
time possible.
In Tuesday night’s competition,
all entrants were trying to set their best qualifying
time. Then, the five fastest times qualify for a final
showdown on Sunday. After the first few rounds of competition,
the leader was Great Britain’s Nigel Horner with
a fast time of 52.73 seconds. After great efforts by Hungary’s
Istvan Karlik (55.50 seconds) and Japan’s Rikiya
Tsukamoto (58.89 seconds), it looked as though Nigel would
head to Sunday as the top qualifier. That was until the
penultimate round of five qualifiers when America’s
Wes Boswewll threw down a smoking fast 37.84 second time
that left everybody stunned. It was a truly impressive
performance as Wes pulled the tires off the rims as though
they didn’t have a bead. This proved to be a very
popular and entertaining event and will make a great addition
to the activities this Sunday.
The final qualifying times were:
1st Wes Boswel (USA) 37.84
2nd Nigel Horner (GBR) 52.73
3rd Istvan Karlik (HUN) 55.50
4th Rikiya Tsukamoto (JPN) 58.89
5th Paulo Pita (POR) 1:00.51
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