Marshall Brothers Provide Upset At Southland Club Champs

EVENT REPORT

17-05-11

Marshall Brothers Provide Upset At Southland Club Champs

It was only a matter of a few weeks ago that the sibling rivalry was red hot in the Marshall household with Brenley and Vaughn Marshall competing head to head in the Senior Yamaha Light class at Kartsport Southland's Macaulay Ford Kart Raceway near Invercargill's Oreti Beach.

However last weekend Brenley made the step up to the Senior Yamaha Heavy class for the 2011 Club Champs and both brothers dominated in their respective classes.

In the Yamaha Heavy class Scott Waters was an easy favourite after a very impressive fifth placing at the national champs over Easter, but Marshall was very fast in his new class, winning five of the eight races over the weekend.

Waters still claimed second while, on comeback, Richard Dimmock was third.

Meanwhile in the Yamaha Light class it was Vaughn Marshall who upstaged Jamie Conroy also winning five of the eight heats to claim the championship from Conroy with Warren Parnell in third.

Hamish Buchanan-Keast dominated the Cadet class winning every race of the weekend, even the final race of the day which was run in treacherous conditions as the skies opened up over the track, leaving Buchanan-Keast's kart the last one on the track!

Dunedin drivers Jack Martinac and Josh Bethune were second and third respectively.

The Junior Yamaha class was a closely fought affair with most drivers in this class experiencing some sort of mechanical or on-track incident over the weekend.

Consequently, the points were a mixed bag right up until the final race with Alex Fraser claiming victory over Brendon Leitch and an ever-improving George Keast claiming the last spot on the podium in third.

Maryanne Renton once again claimed first in the Masters class over brother Nigel McAnelly, but Jason Brown took third and his first ever race win with an impressive drive in the wet on the Sunday afternoon, beating McAnelly by a margin well over thirty seconds.

The final class of the weekend was the very popular Open class. With a big field of twelve karts over the two days it made for some action packed, wheel to wheel racing.

Damon Leitch was fresh from a second placing at the nationals over the Easter weekend but mechanical dramas left him out of the title hunt going into Sunday's racing.

That left Shannan Baker, who drove very fast both days, to easily claim the class club championship title with Stephen Monaghan second and Eamon Young a well deserved third.

Finally, the Driver of The Day award was presented to seven-year-old Corbyn Shuttleworth who hasn't raced in over a year.

He placed sixth in the Cadet class and put on some late race entertainment in the final, the wet conditions seeing the youngster complete numerous 'donuts' all around the track and grass areas much to the delight of the crowd in attendance, the display coming to a dramatic end when he parked the kart in a large puddle of water, saturating himself and a flag marshall in the process.

Kartsport Southland race again on June 19th when they host round one of the Winter Series.

Ends

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