Photos by Olivia Melhop.
There were seven very happy Kiwi Briggs LO206 category karters amongst the 350 drivers celebrating at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday July 08 after a very successful second USAC-sanctioned Battle at the Brickyard kart race meeting over the July 07-08 weekend.
“An absolutely amazing event,” group spokesperson and current KartSport Wellington club President Brent Melhop said from his hotel in the city on the Monday morning afterwards. “All seven of us qualified and got to finish the Finals, and bar Hadleigh (Coffey) who had a big crash and bruised his ribs, we all came through pretty much unscathed.”
Melhop ended up the top finisher of the seven-strong group of Kiwi Briggs LO206 class runners from Wellington who made the trip, finishing 10th in the one-make Margay K3 chassis/Briggs LO206 Ignite Masters class Final (out of 33 starters) and 11th in the main Ignite class Final (out of 44 starters).
Next best was Glen Dodd who finished 16th in the Ignite Masters (for drivers 35-years-and-over) Final after making up six places then came Shane Sayer (19th) and Mike Hanks (24th).
In the main Ignite class Final Shaun Croskery, Glen Dodd and Kyle Nelson finished line-astern in 25th, 26th and 27th places respectively with Shane Sayer 31st, Mike Hanks 34th and Hadleigh Coffey making it up to 35th after starting from the back row of the grid thanks to missing the Pre-Final because of his crash in qualifying.
Coffey and Croskery also entered the open-chassis Briggs Medium class (with 50 entries) where they finished the final 34th (Croskery) and 41st (Coffey)
The course the Battle at the Brickyard meeting ran this year was based on the ‘road course’ at the venue originally created to run the United States Formula 1 GP and the World Championship round of the MotoGP motorcycle series, and included part of the start/finish straight of the Indianapolis 500 course.
As a special ‘treat’ on Friday evening the 350 karters across the 17 classes entered got to do a parade lap around the full 4.0km (2.5 mile) length of the famous oval.
While in Indianapolis the Kiwi karters also took the opportunity to do ‘shop tours’ of both the Andretti Motorsports and Chip Ganassi team race shops….where fellow Kiwi Scott Dixon turned up to say gidday and sign hats, books, posters and a Kiwi flag for the KartSport Wellington club house!
The seven Kiwis ran under the Wilford Motorsport banner with assistance from Auckland-based Carter’s Tyre Service, and Wellington businesses ERS Karting, George Refrigeration and Air Conditioning, Business Knowledge and Typeface.
All seven ran the same livery on their Margay Ignite/Briggs LO2016 karts and the same Carter’s Tyre Service helmet visor banner they do at home.
