Good evening and welcome back to Kingston Park Raceway for Friday Night Challenge. For this round, we saw 26 drivers make their way to Kingston Park Raceway for what is going to an exciting night. For the practice races the drivers were split into 3 groups with our early birds going out first followed by our regulars and late arrivals. With the early birds, out on track, they showed there is serious competition in this group majority of the drivers achieving a 64 second lap or better. The group 2 drivers were up next for their warm up round and majority of the drivers achieved a low 64 second lap or better. With the 2 groups warmed up and ready to go the night was underway with all drivers racing hard on track to earn the most points to be in top 10 positions for the semi-finals. From the top 10 drivers in each semi-final group only 4 drivers will make it into the super final to race for the champion’s trophy. The semi-finals got underway with the top 10 drivers from group 1 on points resuming the battle for the top 4 positions. The top 10 drivers in group 2 were up next to see who will make it through as the other top 4 drivers.

With the semi-finals done and dusted, the top 8 drivers going into the super final were Justin Batrachenko, Luke Beetson, Joshua Manser, Nathan Batrachenko, Chris Carter, Nathan Hocking, Roger Carter and Ben Howard. As the drivers finished the safety briefing for the final race, it was time to get the main event under way. All the drivers switched from being laid back and joking around to competitive mode for the big race that will crown another Friday Night Challenge winner. It’s time to go and the drivers headed out on their pace kart lap. The pace kart peeled back into pit lane and it was time to begin the gentle rolling start up to the start/ finish line. From the jump all of the drivers were evenly matched and once they all drivers spaced out, the competitive nature for fair and equal racing came in. At turn 4 Justin Batrachenko slipped back to 2^nd place on the opening lap which promoted Luke Beetson up to 1^st place. At turn 7 Nathan Hocking tried to out muscle the kart and going around 7 that’ll generally will end up with the driver in the tyres. While Hocking was being rescued at 7 the other drivers were already at turn 1 and Chris Carter saw his opening up the inside of Joshua Manser and took the dive. By the time Manser realised that Carter was up the inside it was already too late for him to do anything about it and just hope that he makes it around the outside without spinning out. As the drivers started to settle into a rhythm Beetson and Justin Batrachenko started to open up a gap over the other drivers. In his push to catch up with the other drivers Manser set the fastest lap of the race with a 62.568. All the drivers kept pushing hard to gain positions and improve on their best lap times of the night. Still on the charge from the back Manser was closing the gap to 5^th place and on the 7^th lap he set an even faster lap of the race with a 62.490. On the final lap Carter was finally in striking distance to challenge Justin Batrachenko for 2^nd place and coming out of turn 8 began the mad dash to the checked flag.

1^st place – Luke Beetson

2^nd place – Chris Carter

3^rd Place – Justin Batrachenko