We arrived at the circuit on Saturday and were blown away. The layout and facilities were incredible compared to anything seen in Australia. The weather was consistently 25 - 30 degrees with zero humidity, which made it pleasant. Driver registration took place on Saturday, Sunday and part of Monday as the raffling of go-karts began on that Monday morning.

We hit the track for our first 20 minute practice session on Tuesday morning, followed by another 20 minute session in the afternoon. Wednesday was much the same with two 15 minute sessions which completed practice. In practice session 3 we were 2nd fastest in our group, 4th overall which we were extremely happy with. We backed this up by topping the time sheets in practice session 4 to be fastest in our group, 2nd overall.

That afternoon we went in to qualifying with new tyres and a lot of nerves. We struggled due to the nerves mainly, but the kart did change with new rubber. We posted a time which was only good enough for 46th overall in the 72 kart field. This would prove to be difficult in climbing our way back up to the front.

Thursday saw the beginning of the heat races after a 10 minute warm up session in the morning. We were 5th quickest in warm up in our group which was good to know, we could use the speed in racing. Unfortunately speed did not seem to matter, as the crash fest began. After an incident in the early stages of the first heat race, we recovered to finish 27th. Heat 2 was similar with a result of 21st to finish a day of racing that was disappointing for us.

Friday kicked off with another 10 minute warm up session in which we were 8th quickest, which was encouraging to see that we still had good kart speed. In the third heat race we managed to stay out of trouble and worked our way up to finish 12th which made us feel a bit better.

However we still had to make the cut for the pre-final and final by finishing within the top 6 in the Second Chance race. If we didn't our weekend would be over, as only the top 34 drivers overall would race in the pre-final and final. We scraped through finishing 5th, which meant we would start 33rd in the pre-final and final.

On Saturday for the 15 lap pre-final we were caught up in an accident which forced us to retire from the race due to sufficient damage. This would see us start from 32nd in the final which was to be run over a 24 lap race distance. As part of the event, we participated in the Drivers parade which saw all 216 drivers from over 57 countries flaunt their team colours and flags for all the spectators before heading into the Finals.

In the final we held our position for the first lap avoiding the accidents. By lap 2 we began to make positions following fellow Australian Jason Pringle before he ran off the track, which gained us a position. We continued to move forward making a pass on a Canadian competitor, who eventually destroyed our run as we were punted off at turn one on lap 4. We returned to the circuit in last position, lucky to only gain more positions from other accidents. For the rest of the race we were able to match the leaders for lap times, but unfortunately could only salvage 24th position by the end of the race.

Despite a disappointing end we were glad to be a part of a world final, something we wish to do again in the future hopefully with a run of better luck! A major thankyou to C.I.C. Constructions, Deeps Engineering, Alex Lind, Karting World, my mechanic Ben George and of course my family.