Australian Penthouse

Melbourne Superkart racer and engineer, Dean Crooke, is working on a new type of vehicle with the potential to revolutionise the sport…

Dean Crooke has been tearing up Australian racetracks at 160km/h since he was 12. He won the 2000 Junior Victorian Club Championship, and two senior titles in 2006 and 2008. Racing is in his blood. His father, Jon, also competed in Superkart, and went on to become Australian Formula Two champion in 1986, and drive for the Holden Dealer Team in the 1987 Bathurst 1000, alongside Peter Brock.

Hi, Dean. What is a Superkart?

Basically, it’s a go-kart with some extra bodywork to make it more streamlined, to get the speeds up. They run on full-size circuits likes Winton, Phillip Island and Eastern Creek, whereas Sprintkarts, or go-karts, are running on the small tracks you see all over the place. There are non-gearbox and gearbox classes, and there are classes for 125cc and 250cc [engines].

How fast can they go?

The one we run is a 125cc non-gearbox, which does about 160km/h at a big track like Phillip Island. The 250cc gearbox karts do about 240km/h—which is insanely quick. They actually break the V8 Supercar lap records at any of the twisty tracks they go to, such as Winton and Calder, because they have so much corner speed.

So, you’re hanging on for grim death, then?

Basically! It’s like racing a motorbike, except you are in it, not on it. You’re not strapped in, which you have to be in a car. But because you don’t have any rollbars or things like that, the idea is that if you roll over, you come out; like when you crash a bike.

How did you get involved in the sport?

I started when I was seven through my dad; he has been involved with motor racing his whole life. We bought a second-hand kart and headed to the local track. We did that until I was 12, when I got a CAMS [Australia’s governing body of motorsport] licence—the earliest age you can get a CAMS licence—and went Superkarting.

We raced until I turned 15, and I won the junior state championship, and got lap records at Winton and Phillip Island.
I then had a break from Superkarting, because we ran out of money, and raced Motocross for a couple of years. Then, at the end of 2005, I decided I’d like to try Superkart again. At that point, I’d done my apprenticeship and knew a
bit about engineering and building things. We looked at what was on the market and thought we could do a better job, so we decided to make our own kart, and then went on to win everything, basically.

The Hyper Pro Racer is your latest project. Tell us about that…

We call it ‘the missing link’. There is a huge gap in motor racing between karting/Superkarting and the next competitive step, which is Formula Ford. Anyone with any money in karting who wins goes on to that, and if you win in Formula Ford the next step is V8 Supercars.

But to set up and run for one year in the national Formula Ford series, it’s $250,000. That puts it out of reach for so many talented guys.

It’s $25,000 to buy the Pro Racer, and $5000 to run it for a season.

What’s under the hood?

It’s a 450cc water-cooled Motocross engine; it’s out of a [Yamaha] YZ450. I think they put out just under 60 horsepower, which is good for the weight of the car. The whole thing is going to weigh 220kg, all up, including the driver.

What sort of top speed are you expecting?

We reckon it will do 230km/h at a nice big track.

It should pull just under 2.5G in the corners, which is quite big—more than a V8 Supercar.

Interview: Steve Harkness

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