The 2006 Championship was run over 6 rounds, at Phillip Island, Winton and Wakefield Park. Dean took 4 round wins and a second to win the championship.

Driving the radical HyperMAXracer, he set the fastest laps of the year at Phillip Island, Winton and Wakefield Park.

With the win at Round 5, Dean had put enough points between himself and the categories leading drivers, Stebbing and the Bey brothers, to eliminate them from the title race. The only driver still able to take the title from Dean was Rod Clarke, who had kept himself in the game with a maximum points admin grab at Round 5. This put him 47 points behind Dean and with 85 points up for grabs, Dean had to finish 7th overall (or better) to win the championship.

PRACTICE
Friday practice went to plan with Dean settling quickly into the 1.9's. Clarke was serious, turning up with a brand new Arrow B-Max chassis.

QUALIFYING
Dean's 5th lap, a 1.09.0564, was good for pole. Dean Davies was second with a 1.10.2238. Championship challenger, Rod Clark, was 5th with a 1.11.3946.

RACE 1 - 8 laps
Dean Crooke 1st, 18 seconds ahead of second place Dean Davies with Evan Fuller 3rd.

RACE 2 - 7 laps
Dean Crooke 1st. Sets fastest time of the day with a 1.08.7222, finishing 7 seconds ahead of Dean Davies with Evan Fuller third.

RACE 3 - 10 laps
Dean Crooke 1st. Laps the entire Max field in the 10 lap race. Alan Dodge 2nd. Peter Howard 3rd.

RACE 4 - 9 laps
Dean Crooke 1st, 7 seconds ahead of Dean Davies. Alan Dodge 3rd.

RACE 5 - 8 laps
Dean Crooke 1st. 3 seconds ahead of Dean Davies. Evan Fuller 3rd

5 WINS FROM 5 STARTS.

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OVERALL ROUND RESULTS
1st Dean Crooke
2nd Dean Davies
3rd Alan Dodge
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Photos are by Jon Crooke

Dean Crooke is supported by

PATRICK'S WEB SITE
Patrick Atherton's entertaining Wakefield Park race report can be found here.

Dean Davies - DRIVER OF THE DAY

The driver of the day must go to Dean Davies. Giving away around 25 kilos to Crooke, the two Dean's mixed it up in the early laps of each heat before the lighter Dean broke away.

Davies fastest lap of 1.09.75 was only a second away from Crooke's fastest lap of 1.08.72.

He finished a convincing 2nd on the day.

Patrick Atherton

Patrick's superkart was fitted with a HyperRacer seat and steering wheel for the race. He must have liked it because he set the second fastest time of the day with a 1.09.65

Shaun Trounson

Shaun did his final P plate round.

Wayne Horswell

Wayne's superkart was sporting HyperRacer bodywork with a standout paint job featuring Bart Simpson and flames.

BAD BOYS
On a down note, the starting antics of some drivers was disgraceful.

As we all know, the rules for starts are - if you are slowing down to assume your grid position and you see the flag raised to signal 5 seconds to start, you must immediately stop regardless of whether you are in your grid spot or not.

Some drivers at the rear of the grid were seen taking advantage of some slack marshalling and were rolling at considerable speed through the 5 second period to jump the start.

Sadly, one offender was a person, that earlier in the year, had vehemently condemned the practice and had put drivers on notice that "If you don't stop, you will be penalized". This driver was a championship contender on the day and is a leading member of the superkart community, with many many years of experience. In all of Sundays 3 heats he blatantly jumped the start in this manner, passing drivers who had earned their grid position on merit. In the last heat he went from his mid field grid position to the front of the field before the first turn and finished ahead of three drivers he had jumped. Yes he had had the weekend from hell, but this is no excuse for the classless act he perpetrated on his colleagues. He, of all people, should be setting the standard for other less experienced members.

In a class of racing where members are trying to promote an image of professionalism, this 'I don't give a rat's arse how I win behavior', drags us back to the old days of "Well what do you expect mate, they're karters".

The superkart community in general and the drivers who were ripped off by the jumper's, are the poorer for it. You will never see this type of behavior in the rest of the racing community AND we wonder why the 'real' racing community doesn't take us seriously.

Sadly, even at this meagre level of motorsport, there's backbiting about someone who simply wants to "sex-up" and introduce innovation to the tired sport of non-gearbox superkarts. There is all sorts of gossip and excuses, none of it constructive.

But few seem to be trying to go out and out-engineer and outdrive them. It's as if some people think whinging is more impressive than competing. If you can't beat 'em, ban 'em.

Take one look at the HyperRacer and you'd see a machine that people from outside the sport of karting will want to own and race. That is, people without pre-conceived ideas or prejudices. That's good for the sport. End of story. Superkarts cannot survive on an unstable diet of converted sprint kart drivers.