TOYOTA IAME Leopard Series underway in Tassie

The Tasmanian section of the TOYOTA IAME Leopard series for 2007 kicked off at the Andrew Walter Construction Kartway near Hobart.

Check out the picture gallery from this event here...

The weekend started off with rain and showers making plastic buckets the latest motor racing accessory. They make a cheap and easy water shield for the air box and they come in lots of bright colours.

Photograph by Northeast Photography

During race day the weather improved and the finals ran on a dry track. However, one of the heats had a drying track with a shower coming through just before the race start. This produced the normal, wets versus slicks quandary for pit crews.

Those that wanted to make last minute changes to tyre choice were told by officials to remove their karts from the out grid before they could work on the karts.

Then officials went strictly by the rulebook and called the competitors to the grid invoked the two minute time limit. Ben Buttery did not make it back into the out grid compound in time and missed the heat.

During the combined preliminary heats, Heavy class runners Ben Walter and Jared Bishop were the pair to beat and they continued their battle into the Heavy final. Bishop, driving a new Gillard Charlotte, led for most of the race with Walter (Arrow) sitting on his crash bar.

Zane Wyatt (Arrow) stayed with the pair in the early stages and then faded into the clutches of Jeff Dickson (Monaco) who had done a better job of coming from the back than Luke Northeast (Gillard T-Rex).

When the crunch time came Walter slipped past Bishop to win, while Dickson closed but ran out of laps and had to be content with the last spot on the podium.

In the Light final, it looked set to be a two-way battle between veteran karter and NASCAR style racer, Jason Wyllie and youngster Zac Lennon, both in Tony Karts.

Lennon closed an early gap Wyllie made at the start and lap after lap looked for a way past the experienced Wylie.

Years of racing showed and Wyllie knew how to cover any possible overtaking moves, without weaving or blocking.

Finally, at the bottom of the first sweeper Lennon went for a bold move that did not come off. The karts were stranded on the track with their wheels locked together.

From the driver's seat, Wyllie managed to separate the karts and the pair rejoined the race. While they were sorting themselves out the podium placers drove past lead by Steven Wrigley (CRG) chased by Adrian Harper (Gillard T-Rex).