Breakthrough win for fast female at Summer Series Finale
The final race day of Karting Australia’s GoPro Summer Series saw more history created with Alana Gurney being the first female driver to win a Gold Medal at a Summer Series Event. The Victorian claimed the Gold Medal in the Cadet 12 Feature Race, while Henry Johnstone turned the tables on Jay Coul after Saturday’s Feature to take Gold in KZ2.
Gurney took little time in the Feature Race to get to the front, but she continued her strong showing throughout the weekend and went on to take a comfortable 2.2-second victory. Livewire Rossi Yau came home in second position with Casper Anderson pushing forward to emerge third in the Cadet 12 category – all three competitors’ best showing in a national-level event.
In the premier KZ2 Gearbox category, Saturday’s Feature Race results were reversed with Henry Johnstone asserting his dominance throughout the day over Jay Coul. Johnstone took the win by 5.8 seconds and wasn’t headed while Coul was in a race-long battle with West Australian, Jack Webster, which took a late-race twist.
Saturday’s Bronze Medallist, Toby Dvorak staged a late race surge from fourth and waited until the last lap in the 11 minute plus one lap Feature to edge past Webster to claim his second consecutive Bronze Medal.
Sunshine Coaster, Jye Flynn was another to reverse Saturday’s fortunes. After being relegated to third post-race, crossing the line first in Race Day One, Flynn pushed forward to take the win today in an entertaining race that saw a three-way battle emerge mid-way through the race between Flynn, Saturday’s winner Ky Burke and Braxton Regan – who had a storming Race Day Two. Ultimately, Flynn was able to escape Burke who was locked in a battle with Regan to win by 1.8 seconds.
Regan’s medal haul wasn’t done with KA2. The Sydney-sider was wearing double Bronze Medals home after finishing third in the KA3 Junior Feature.
South Australian Noah Enright was the standard bearer throughout the day in the 54-strong entries KA3 Junior category. With the class being split into two groups, Enright dominated his half of the draw, while New South Welshman, Corey Carson was at the peak on the second half. The first time the pair met today was in the Feature.
Carson – who had just come off the KA2 Feature – held the best of the early running before Enright got by and then pulled away from the Wollongong racer to claim the Gold.
In KA3 Senior, Geelong racer, Zach Findlay – whose family has a strong affinity with the sport historically, took an easy win in the Feature. He’d been strong through the Sprint Races and that continued into the Feature. Zac Heard backed up his medal performance from Saturday with a Silver Medal while Christian Sasso raced hard to complete the podium, having several battles through the race, ultimately claiming the Bronze.
In TaG 125, local driver Amos Orr took the biggest Senior category win of his career. He toiled away through the Sprint Races and then in the Feature got to the front quickly and was never headed, it was behind him where the real interest was. Queenslander, Mika Lemasurier turned his misfortunes of Saturday around to claim Silver, while Jackson Souslin-Harlow battled multiple bent components and chassis after a turn one, lap one collision that saw him fight back to claim the Bronze.
Thus ends the GoPro Summer Series for this year and the national Karting Australia run events for 2024. The next major national event will be the first round of the 2025 SP Tools Australian Kart Championship, presented by Castrol to be held at the Port Melbourne facility over the weekend of March 28-30, 2025.