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After a solid day of testing on Saturday, everybody was looking forward to getting the racing started on Sunday.
The morning was cloudy and windy with the threat of rain looming overhead. The karts took to the track for the morning
practice sessions with a stiff breeze blowing at them down the front straight. The Rotax Max class was looking smaller
then expected with only 6 karts entered for the days events. With the morning practice sessions complete, the afternoon
was set to begin with qualifying and end with the pre-final and final races at the end of the day.
On a set of new tires, Richert headed out for the qualifying session and managed to put together several quick times.
Towards the end of the session, after cooling his tires for a lap, Richert was going to have another go at setting a quick
time. But going through the first sector of the lap there was severe understeer and the kart was forced off the track.
Upon returning to the track and heading into the hairpin the kart started to bottom out and it was evident that the session
was over for Richert. After looking over the kart it was discovered that the frame had cracked by the left front tire,
ending Richert's day early. "There's not much I could do about it. I didn't hit anything or do anything out of
the ordinary, it just happened." stated Richert. With several weeks before the next event there should be ample time
to fix the problem and be ready to compete again on May 30.
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