53rd Blossom Karting Event Springs Into Life In Hawkes Bay

September celebrates spring and for the karting fraternity, it is celebrated with the traditional Blossom event hosted by KartSport Hawkes Bay.

The club host the 53rd running of Blossom to be staged at the Carter Tyres Raceway at Roy’s Hill in Hastings this weekend.

It has drawn a field of more than 100 karters competing over 11 classes along with demonstrations of Vintage karts.

The club continues the traditional two-day format with racing run clockwise around the 687m track on Saturday and changing to anti-clockwise on Sunday. This incorporates its equally unique format with all heats in pre-determined grids, plus the final on Saturday carrying points over to Sunday. Most classes will then run a further four heats with pre-set grids before a final heat with grid determined by highest points to the front, while others will run a total of nine heats and a Grand Prix. Drivers can then drop their worst performance before podiums are finalised on points over the weekend.

Racing will be decided for Rotax Max Light, Vortex ROK DVS Junior, Cadet ROK, Vortex Mini ROK, 125cc Rotax Max Junior, ClubSport 120, Briggs LO206 Light/Heavy, Rotax Max Heavy, Vortex ROK DVS & Open/Rotax DD2/KZ2.

They include a trio of rising young prospects in local karter Tom Bewley and the Manawatu pair of Tommy Hart and Kiahn Burt.

Bewley is the ROK DVS Junior Kartstars winner and National Sprint Champion; Hart is the Cadet ROK Kartstars champion and winner of the CIK Trophy while Burt is the Rotax Max Junior National Champion.

The Blossom event spans most of the history of karting in New Zealand. The first event was staged around the streets of the suburb of Mayfair in Hastings in September 1968, at that stage to raise funds towards the new sealed track at Roy’s Hill which remains the club’s home base today.

The event was run as a road race in the downtown Napier and at Westshore, and at one stage comprised a road race at the local dragstrip followed by sprint event at the club track on the Sunday.

Blossom then changed to the two-day format that is still staged today.

Testing is on Friday with racing from 10.30am on Saturday and 9.30am on Sunday.

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