McLaughlin returns to his kart track roots
THE next few months will be the biggest in the life of the 24-yearold Scott McLaughlin, but he was able to get away from the pressure and return to his roots last week.
McLaughlin is just 12 points clear of Jamie Whincup in the Supercars championship with five rounds in the season to go.
It’s ‘‘squeaky bum time’’ as Sir Alex Ferguson once famously said, but McLaughlin escaped from the intensity, as well as glamour of the Supercars series last Thursday, to make a visit to Hamilton Kart Club, where it all started for him.
He mingled with karting enthusiasts and kids desperate for autographs or selfies, before winding back the clock and doing a few laps.
Even on a karting track, it was clear the difference between an amateur and McLaughlin, as he picked out the right lines and got every bit of power out of the small engine.
McLaughlin has spent a fair amount of his life living in Australia, where his profile is so big that he even stars in TV commercials for Rexona.
But despite all this, his heart is still in New Zealand and a karting track near Hamilton Airport in particular.
‘‘I genuinely miss the place,’’ McLaughlin said, gazing out from a wooden bench to the track, looking at a young driver spinning off around the final corner.
‘‘I miss karting over here and my mum and dad are over here [in New Zealand] now.
‘‘So New Zealand is something I never forget about and it’s cool to come back here and do stuff like this, especially because I’m the patron of not only Hamilton Kart Club, but also Kart Sport NZ now.
‘‘So I feel like I should do something for them and I felt like I did a pretty good job.’’
Although this season has been the best of McLaughlin’s career, last weekend at Sydney
‘ It’s cool to come back here and do stuff like this.’ SCOTT MCLAUGHLIN
Motorsport Park was by far the worst, after he finished 21st in Saturday’s race following an incident when he was penalised for taking out Shane van Gisbergen and fourth in Sunday’s race, despite starting from pole position.
‘‘It was pretty eventful, you’re always going to have a bad one along the way,’’ McLaughlin said.
‘‘I didn’t want that to happen and it was definitely a bad result from where we qualified and we could have got two podiums and been in an even better position.
‘‘At the end of the day it is what it is, we’re still in the lead and that’s exactly what you need to do.’’
While the championship is still up for grabs, McLaughlin is already locked in for the Armor All Pole award.
He has started the last seven races from pole position and unlike last year in the GRM Volvo, when he was also quick in a qualifying lap, the Shell V Power Ford has pace in race situations, too.
‘‘That’s a big difference for me,’’ he said.
‘‘If I can get it off the line well, I feel that if I can take the lead I can control the lead. That’s what I didn’t have in the Volvo and this is an exciting prospect for me, but it’s also something that I’m having to learn.’’
But something that’s become a concern is getting off to good starts from pole. In one of last weekend’s races he’d fallen to fifth place by the first corner.
‘‘It’s definitely an issue, but it’s something we can work on,’’ he said.
‘‘Myself and Ludo [Lacroix, his race engineer] didn’t really understand the car at the start of the year, but we’re definitely on top of that.
‘‘Each time we’ve had a problem we’ve rectified it, so I can’t see the starts being a problem for any longer, because I feel like we’re going to put all of our eggs in one basket to make it right.
‘‘It’s a couple of little things I need to do and we’ll be OK.’’