State Titles – Preview

This weekend the team will be competing at the 2011 Open State Championships, to be held at the Monarto Karting Complex on the 25th -27th of November.

Brandon will be competing in the Rotax Heavy class which is set to be highly competitive with both local and interstate drivers contesting the class this weekend. Brandon will be assisted by engine builder Ian Williams and also have technical support via phone from Bill Miller. With drivers across all the classes coming from all main land states of Australia, the competition across all classes will be fierce. The Rotax Heavy entry list can be seen below.

Rotax Heavy:

• Nathan Burgess
• Matthew Fritz
• Con Paxinos
• Kris Walton
• Ricky Carmody
• Anthony Burke
• Paul Rodgers
• Brandon Stillwell
• Joshua Willett
• Jeff Jansen
• Scott Bobstchinski
• George Economou
• Kevin Ledwidge
• Christopher Board
• Daniel Stein
• Blake Mooney

Once again, the team would like to thank G – Force Security, Ian Williams Tuning, DA Motorcycles, Maxima Racing Products and Gadget Graphics for their help and support this season.

Festival State Cup Round 5

On the 25th of September, Brandon competed at the final round of the 2011 FSC Series at the Monarto Karting Complex. Brandon was competing in the Sportsman 125 Light and Heavy classes at this round with varied results through the day.

Sportsman 125 Light:

Brandon ran in the light class this season, mainly due to him taking out first place in last years series. Brandon, whom was running over the class weight, ran in 5th place all day as he could not quite match the on weight competitors. Brandon sat out of the final heat for the day as he was firmly in 5th place for the day and wanted to focus his efforts on the more important Sportsman 125 Heavy class.

Sportsman 125 Heavy:

The Heavy class was Brandons to lose on race day. He was determined to do all he could to secure the first place plate for the year. In the first heat everyone was a little touchy feely and there was plently of kart contact from all drivers. Brandon managed to avoid most of this and came home in 3rd position after starting 11th. However, this day was to become slightly harder as Brandon came in 100g underweight and therefore was credited with a last place finish for the heat.

Heat 2 and Brandon started on pole, and after an early race battle with Jeff Jansen #14, drove away to record a heat win. For heat three Brandon started midpack due to his first race penalty and avoided the usual rubbing of sidepods and came home in 3rd postion and still gaining on 2nd place.  For the final heat of the day and the year, Brandon started out of position three and immediately jumped to 2nd place but wasnt quite able to perform the pass to collect the heat win. All the drivers shook hands and congratulated each other for the year of racing. Brandon finshed 3rd overall for the day and with that took out the series win.

The FSC Series dinner will be held on the 2nd of December at the PAFC function rooms.

The teams next event will be the annual River City Titles at the Monarto Karting Complex on the 15th and 16th of October.

Rotax Nationals Wrap

On the first weekend of September they team were competing at the annual Rotax Nationals at Beckley Park Raceway in Geelong. With minimal changes overnight Brandon rolled out for qualifying and struggled slightly with rear grip on the cold track surface but still managed to qualify 25th in the 31 kart field.

The three heats were to be run over 16 laps of the Geelong circuit. Brandon was one of the unluckier competitors during the heat races, although showing reasonable pace, was unfortunately caught up in other peoples accidents and therefore dropped down the order. This misfortune netted Brandon a 28th place starting position for the 20 lap prefinal on Sunday, but there was a surprise coming for all competitors the next morning.

The team arrived at the track early on Sunday, expecting a rather hard days work ahead of them. Halfway through the warm up sessions the sky clouded over and it began to rain, something that no competitor had experienced over the weekend so far. The team hastily prepared the kart for the changed conditions and headed to the grid. In the early running of the race Brandon had moved from 28th up to 20th but an incident ahead pushed him back to about 25th place. Brandon did not let this deter him and as the 20 lap prefinal progressed Brandon moved further and further up the field and as the chequered flag fell, he finished in an astounding 6th place and with it took the fastest lap of the race.

The team were amazed at this result and set about preparing the kart for the much anticipated 30 lap final to decide the 2011 Rotax Heavy National Champion. As a result of his 6th place finish in the prefinal, Brandon had gained 6th place on the grid for the final. At the start Brandon moved to 3rd as he followed the outside line of karts into the first corner. Brandon held on to 3rd place early on and then a minor error dropped him back to 6th place in the running. This is where the drama started for Brandon, unusally excessive brake wear had badly affected the stopping power of the G Force Security Arrow Kart. This allowed competitiors to pass Brandon at the end of the main and pit straights as he was unable to fight for position. Brandon finished the Final in 13th place, still very much an amazing effort from the South Australian Team. Again Brandon would like to thank G Force Security, IWT and DA Motorcycles for the continued support.

Rotax Nationals – Practice Day

This weekend the team is competing at the 2011 Australian Rotax Nationals at the Beckley Park Raceway, Geelong. The first full day of on track action was run today, with nearly all 31 Rotax Heavy competitors taking to the track for valuable testing ready for the weekend.

The team progressed through a series of kart and engine changes to get to a point where Brandon was happy with the general handling and performance. With the bulk of the field, which includes Karting Legends such as William Yarwood, Matt Wall and current #1 Simon Meyer, within a few tenths of a second of each other the following two days shall be close and all races will go down to the wire.

Bounce Back

After a season containing some rather rough results thus far, the Stillwell Racing Team bounced back at the weekends ‘City of Adelaide Titles’ and can hopefully carry this good form on the the Rotax Nationals, River City Titles and the SA Open State Title.

Friday was practice day, the track was open to all competitors for the weekends event. Brandon ran consistently all day with his new IWT built Rotax engine to show pace that should have him on the front row of the grid after qualifying.

Saturday morning, the Sportsman 125 Heavy field lined up for their Qualifying session, as Brandon circulated early on in the session and was showing reasonable speed for the conditions when disaster stuck. Another competitor made contact with the rear of Brandon’s Arrow x1-E kart which sent him spearing off into one of the circuits gravel traps. This caused Brandon to have to start from the rear of the grid for the first heat, as Officials dismissed the incident. For race 1 Brandon raced from the rear of the grid up into 5th position and shows signs of the pace he had in practice.

For the class’ 2nd race of the meeting, Brandon started from 5th position and at first dropped back to 7th place, however Brandon again persisted and raced home in 3rd place and sat in 4th place on the points table for the meeting so far. The team arrived on sunday morning to find the track rather wet for carby session. The Pre-final was run on a predominantly wet circuit however the bulk of the class opted to run the MG Red slick tyre in these conditions. Brandon got a good start to be sitting in 3rd place and pressuring for 2nd, as 2/3 race distance arrived the driver in 2nd succumed to the pressure and made a slight error allowing Brandon to pass and eventually finish in 2nd position.

Starting the Final in 2nd position, Brandon had eventually made it back to where he should have started the weekend from. As the green light shone, Brandon raced into the first corner in 1st place, however contact from behind caused Brandon to run wide of the ideal racing line allowing kart 13 of Paul Pittam through. From here Brandon was unable to back major gains on kart 13, and finished the Final in 2nd place. To add to this result, Brandon also won 2nd prize in the CoA raffle, his prize was a voucher for $200 at Gadget Graphics.

Brandon and the Team would like to thank sponsors G Force Security, Maxima Racing Oils and DA Motorcycles, Ian Williams Tuning for building the teams new 2011 Rotax engine, Gadget Graphics for designing the sticker kit and Ryan Felmingham and Peter Fritz for their help in the Pits over the meeting. Brandon will now carry out some test days before the team heads to Geelong for the 2011 Rotax Nationals on the first weekend of September.

Closed State Titles – Wrap Up

The Closed State Titles was run and won over the weekend, and the teams stand in driver, Jarman Dalitz, did very well considering he has not raced a kart compeditively for over 18 months.

In the Sportsman 125 Light class Jarman qualified in 5th and 8th in the two sessions, giving him a starting position of 8th for the heats. He battled through the heats to be sitting 7th and withing striking distance of 6th place ready for the prefinal. Jarman raced hard in the prefinal to finish 7th again, ready for the final race. Jarman dropped a few places at the start of the final, but battled away to finish 8th place.

In the Rotax Light class Jarman showed some speed superior to his level of recent race experience in the practice session. Mechanical issues hampered progress during qualifying and the heats. In the Prefinal Jarman showed pace reminicent of his FSC series win a few years ago. Jarman finished in 4th place with more than enough speed to challenge for 3rd place. For the final, more mechanical issues arose to damage jarmans speed, although he was still able to challenge for 5th place.

Overall Jarman drove very well, with consideration to his lack of recent experience. The team would like to thank Jarman for filling in for this meeting. Brandon will be race ready for the 4th round of the FSC Series at the Robinson Park Raceway on the 28th of May.

Medical Issues

On Tuesday evening, Brandon was admitted to the Royal Adelaide Hospital with stomach pains. This turned out to be appendicitis, which has sadly ruled brandon out of this weekends South Australian Closed State Titles at the Monarto Karting Complex.

To keep the team and its sponsors represented at the meeting, Young Speedway Driver and former Festival State Cup Champion, Jarman Dalitz has been called upon by the team to race in the Sportsman 125 Light and the Rotax Light Classes. Brandon will be in attendance to assist Mr Dalitz with kart set up and driving. Jarman won the FSC series in Junior Clubman in the year 2008 and like Brandon had had the coveted Black Plate win missing from his driving C.V. Could this be Jarmans year? In a last minute deal? The weekend will reveal all.