X LE MAKES HER NATIONALS DEBUT IN THE AUSTRALIAN SUPERKART CUP
Following a cracker of a Round 1 where X Le snagged victory in her # 88 Rotax Max Superkart, X came into this round with a hunger for more points. This meant remaining consistent, staying on track at all costs, and keeping her mind clear and focused…
Unfortunately in FP3 on the Friday before race weekend’s official start, X Le found the wall at Turn 2 on the National Layout and her rear axle was completely destroyed in the incident. Following her helmet snapping off, she was rushed into the MedVan after leaping over the wall post-crash to avoid the live track with roaring gearbox karts coming right at her. X Le was cleared for action in MedBay and escaped the incident with minor brusing, and most-likely, a damaged ego.
Despite the crash, X Le’s competitors came together and through hours of work, blood, sweat (and some tears from X), the kart was repaired just in time for Qualifying on Saturday morning. We still cannot believe this.
See what our driver had to say about the weekend below.
X-LOG:
“round 2 of the ultimate steel framing superkart championship ✅️ ... this is just going to be word vomit. as most of you know, i had a bit of an excursion through the grass at T2 during practice. inexperienced operator error. just as andrew had gotten the engine operating better than it had been at the past two race meets, i was in a wall. when i had caught a glimpse of the damage to the kart and hopped into the medvan, one of the first things i got told was that my weekend was over. the fact that i was completely fine, but that my kart didn't make it made me so frustrated with myself.
just under 10 minutes after hitting that low, shaun met up with us as we were walking back to the pits. he had assessed the damage with the others and by some miracle... "replace that rear axle, and you are all good to go."
5/6 hours later, with hard work AND spare parts from so many other drivers (andrew, jack, steve, brock, dave, and patrick), the rear axle had been replaced, crack in seat repaired, and the kart side pods and radiator mounts were bent back into shape.
from there i kept hitting deeper lows and higher highs one after another. from realizing in quali and race 1 how terrified i was to make another mistake that destroys my kart (to the point of forgetting how to breathe while lining up in marshalling), to shaving a total of ~15 seconds off of the times i was hitting pre-crash.
we finished every race without incident.
what kept me trying harder and harder was just seeing how hard the competitors worked to keep me on track and not wanting their efforts, good advice, and positive feedback to go to waste.
so thanks for the millionth time to everyone involved last weekend... beer's on me next round.”
