MOTORSPORT: Mystery mix-up thwarts karter

Whangarei's three-time national superkart champion Robin Woolridge was denied a fourth title in Christchurch at the weekend, when water in his fuel supply forced him to withdraw midway through the national championships.
Woolridge accepted the result as one of the pitfalls of motor racing but was still mystified as to how the water got into his fuel at the Ruapuna Raceway.
"It's a mystery at the moment and when I get home I'm going to analyse the fuel that's in the fuel drum and also look at what's in the tank. If it's in the drum then potentially the fuel was supplied with water in it ... but I doubt that."
"It was a challenging weekend, I certainly had the speed, I just didn't have the fuel, basically someone had to knock me off my perch.
"I'd been on there for three consecutive seasons and it wasn't through lack of skill or lack of preparation - it was just an unfortunate occurrence," he said.
Ironically, before Wooldridge left Whangarei he told the Northern Advocate that the only thing that stood between him and a fourth title was wet weather and he was proved right - but not in the way he thought.
"I told you before that I didn't have a wet set-up for the kart, so Saturday's practice was spent dialling that set-up into the wet conditions ... the track was pooling terribly and I did think I had got what I thought was a good set-up," he said.
In qualifying Woolridge was still four seconds off the pace and he finished the qualifying session in sixth place on the starting grid.
That didn't matter in the first race on Sunday, however. On a damp track Wooldridge, still on a wet set-up, won the first heat.
The drying track saw drivers switch back to their dry set-ups and with another win in the second heat, Wooldridge had plenty of reason to feel confident of his fourth national title.
"But from that point on everything went wrong," he said.
He didn't finish the third race and didn't start the fourth because of water in the aviation fuel needed to power his Gas Gas 250cc engine.
"I'm just unsure where it came from, I was particularly careful not to fuel in the rain because we had well appointed pit shelters available, so we weren't working in the rain but somehow we've got water in the fuel and it has caused us big dramas," he said. Christchurch professional driver Matthew Hamilton, well known for his participation in the Toyota Racing Series, won the national title after good speed in the wet set him up as the early frontrunner.
With Wooldridge's withdrawal, the gate was open for Hamilton to lift his first crown.