Meeting shut down

[marcus]

June 3 saw an interested event take place at Willowbank raceway in Queesnsland.
The Ipswitch kart club was holding their club event which was to be the last meeting in the build up to the Queensland state titles. The meeting was running a little late so the stewards decided that the rest of the meeting should be conducted under lights.

The conclusion of this event however was to take a dramatic affair and short ending with the Stewards of the event having to announce at a special drivers briefing that the meeting will be shut down.

This was in effect a result of the Qld State Karting Council directive from the State Track Inspectors report, which in part required ,Willowbank lighting to comply to the AKA 18.27 rule, and forbade the issue of a permit to conduct any further events under lights.

Ipswich Kart Club has been conducting race meetings under lights for a number of years, and were the first club in Queensland to have permanently installed lights for night racing . Up until yesterday the lighting was always considered adequate, and the club recently installed additional lights and towers to upgrade the existing lighting

250 karters had to pack their machines up and head home with alot of unanswered questions..why was this allowed to go on for 18 months without anything being done about it and why it wasnt fixed by the people responsible.

i would not be to happy having to pack my stuff up and head home without finishing the meeting.

I will endevour to find out exactly what happened with this situation but it is a sad state of affairs thats for sure.

[philneast]

On the surface it seems a bit strange.

The 2001 AKA manual clearly states that existing tracks must comply with the lighting specs laid down in this rule, by 2003.

A pity to cut short a meeting, especially if you get people who have travelled a distance.