DESIGN CREATIVITY AND TRUE GRIT AT BILLY KART DERBY

On a sunny hot day, the second running of the Monaro Billy Kart Derby at the Cooma Showground on Sunday 22 January was notable for a wide range of highly creative cart designs, hot times and close competition in all classes; also for the true grit of a young competitor who kept on getting back onto her cart after a series of crashes into the hay bales.

The Cooma Police were at the event with their radar gun and clocked Tom Brown at 42 km/hour in the Cooma Rural Fire Brigade kart which was the fastest speed for the day.  While Elyssa Gould did not win the 5-8 years Classic Kart competition, she won the admiration of everyone at the event by pluckily climbing back on to her rope steered cart after a series of crashes and ‘soldiering on’ to complete all her 4 runs down the Cooma Showgrounds track.

Organisers Tony Nassar and Kurt Wassink were very pleased with this second running of the Kart Derby, and in his presentation speech Tony Nassar expressed thanks to the event sponsors – Cooma Car Club, Cooma Rural Fire Brigade, High Country Automotive Group and Snowy Monaro Regional Council.  Tony also expressed a special thankyou to David Baron who provided the safety hay bales and donated some of the bales to The Community Chest.  Mr Nassar thanked the Cooma Car Club members who volunteered for the day as race officials, and recorded a special mention to David Thompson from Wambion and David Gray from Queanbeyan who brought their hot rod and Chevrolet Corvette replica carts to the event and competed in the Novelty Class.
Pictured left with organiser Tony Nassar is 9-14 years class winner Deana Hedger and her trophy.

As well as age group Classes, the carts themselves were also classified as being “Traditional’ – being made from wood with rope steering, ‘Modern’ or ’Novelty’.  Out of a total 34 competitors, the Class place getters on the day were:

MODERN DESIGN
5-8 years
1^st                     Jackson Lee                  best time 18.41s
2^nd                   Lachlan Corbett           best time 20.57s
3^rd                    Max Ward                     best time 21.88s

9-14 years
1^st                     Deana Hedger             best time 17.81s
2^nd                   Thomas Evans             best time 18.08s
3^rd                    Ethan Conley               best time 18.21s

15-18 years
1^st                     Simeon Truter              best time 19.93s
2^nd                   Kiana Swain                  best time 19.26s
3^rd                    Logan Crawford           best time 20.06s

18+ years
1^st                     Peter Heeley                 best time 17.76s
2^nd                   Pierre Wall                    best time 18.13s
3^rd                   Tristan Johnston          best time 19.23s

CLASSIC DESIGN
1^st                     Will Taylor                     best time 35.53s

NOVELTY CLASS
1^st                     Dave Thompson            best time 17.71s

BUSINESS CLASS
1^st                     Daniel Nassar for Full On Constructions  best time 18.06s

EMERGENCY SERVICES TROPHY
1^st                     Tom Brown & Ben Morley for Cooma Rural Fire Brigade

FASTEST TIME OF THE DAY
Ben Morley        best time 17.53s