KARTING
1988 - 1992

My dad is a car-racing nut and I travelled with him to races for years. I didn’t have the money to start myself before I was 14, when I bought my first kart, and then I just went to my local karting track, Gippsland Kart Club.

From mid-1989 I was working as an apprentice full time and using that money to fund the karting. It got pretty hard sometimes, like in 1990 when my dad was working overseas and another friend had damaged his tow-vehicle. We ended up karting seven karts around in an econovan and trailer to around 25 race meetings a year.

Even so, go karting was the most fun part of my career; you don’t think of it as that then but as far as driving goes you do more in a go-kart than what you’ll do in Australian motorsport.

I guess one of the things I enjoyed most is that as a driver you’re involved in everything: you’re working on the go-kart, learning all the time, driving, organizing logistics… It makes it very enjoyable.

My only regret is not winning the Australian title. I even extended my karting career in 1992, when I was driving Formula Fords, to have one last shot. Unfortunately I blew my good motor the weekend before and was forced to piece together another. It wasn’t as good and I think I finished third but that was the end of my go-karting career.