It would seem second year race kart driver Tom Manwaring has kicked into high gear after a spectacular weekend of racing at Grenfell Kart Club for the third round of the Southern Star Series.
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Coming off the back of a round win in Canberra for the ACT Titles, Manwaring was full of confidence in his Kosmic Allcott Hire supported race kart heading into his home track event in the popular country karting championship.
In a massive 20-kart field, Cowra's Manwaring was on fire in qualifying and put the Allcott Hire Kosmic TS28 kart on Pole Position for the first three heats of the day, the first time Manwaring has achieved the feat.
"I'm quite emotional at the moment. We came here expecting to be mid pack, and hoping for a top five result, but we've just claimed Pole!," he said.
"I work so hard for results, and they have been hard to come by thus far in the season aside from last weekend. But it seems we now have our pace back, and I'm really happy to be able say I am now a pole position qualifier."
Heat 1 saw great battles throughout the 20 kart field, but particularly in the top ten.
A blanket could have been thrown over the top 8, as the field compressed with home grown driver Manwaring leading the first lap cleanly.
He was overtaken for 1st on lap 3, but fought back to regain the lead. But on the last lap, Manwaring was under enormous pressure from the rest of the field, and slipped back to 2nd where he stayed for the chequered flag on the last lap.
Heat 2 was equally entertaining, producing brutal action throughout the field. Manwaring led all the way from the start until the last corner of the last lap where he fell agonisingly short of his sixth race win of 2014, passed on the inside by two drivers and holding onto third.
With less than 7 tenths of a second separating the top ten in qualifying, racing produced extremely tight bumper-to-bumper action throughout Saturday's events.
Heat 3 saw Manwaring off pole for the last time, but this time he didn't get away cleanly. He fell to third where he stayed for three laps.
This race, however, was different as the top three - Manwaring, Doran and Piper - pulled away from the rest of the field, opening up a 3-4 second margin over fourth place.
As the top three worked together early on to build time on the rest of the field, Manwaring's luck ran out breaking a chain on a kurb on lap three.
The DNF cost him valuable track position for the Pre Final on Sunday, starting off 7th.
The fourth race of the meeting was arguably the most entertaining, with Cowra-based Manwaring battling for 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th place. As the five-way pack battled, it allowed the top three to slip from grasp, where they opened a margin over the second pack of karts.
Manwaring was nicely placed in 5th, and on the tail of 4th place. They had a heated battle, trading positions on a number of occasions, before coming to a brutal head on lap 10 of 13.
Caught wide of two other karts, Manwaring was shunted off the road slipping down to 7th position before being overtaken again at the flag.
"We were looking strong for 4th, which would be a really good starting position for the Final but we were caught in the wrong place at the wrong time unfortunately," he said.
"The DNF put us down in the mid pack, where the risk is higher, but I'm being held up. Our pace is actually faster than the top three, and is equal second best at the moment, it's just track position that's hurting us."
But the Final race on Sunday sealed Manwaring's fate of narrowly missing out on an overall podium, despite running within the top three all day and qualifying on Pole Position.
Carnage broke out even before the first corner in the Final, where he was caught in the middle of a kart pile up. Manwaring very nearly rolled the kart, as it jumped half a metre into the air, crashing back to Earth in a spectacular incident.
Facing the wrong way, Manwaring seemed stunned by the accident at first, before recovering, turning the kart around and racing on. Manwaring put the on the race of his life, driving the kart to its absolute limit. By this time he was 20th or dead last, and chasing down whomever he could.
Over the course of the 16 laps, Manwaring put on an amazing drive, overtaking two karts in one corner at one point, before crossing the line with 11 karts behind him. Tom set the second fastest lap of the race, only 0.15s off the fastest lap.
"It was very nerve wracking being in the air when all of that occurred. The axle was bent, so I had a ton of vibration in the rear as well. I drove as fast and as hard as I could to catch back up, and drove aggressively.
"The kart was consistent and really quick all weekend. A massive thanks to Allcott Hire, Lachlan Engineering Cowra, and Triton Industries Cowra for all their support, this has been one to remember, amazing!
"We were running second in terms of pace all weekend aside from qually, but the DNF really hurt us by putting us in traffic. Just got held up, and couldn't move forward resulting in disaster in the Final."
Manwaring walked away from Grenfell with two podium race finishes, (2nd and 3rd) and his Maiden Career Pole Position as well as finishing 8th overall for the weekend.
