Focus shifts for champion
Fresh from claiming a national title at the 2019-20 Late Models Australian Championship at the Perth Motorplex on Saturday night, it was business as usual for Kye Blight back at work in Bunbury this week.
Although the modest motor ace did not seem to mind.
“All the help around keeps me grounded,” he said. “They were critiquing my race straight after. As great and fantastic as it all was, it now shifts to Albany.
“We have the second weekend of the USA Invasion Late Model tour this weekend to focus on — and we have a lot of Great Southern sponsors and support, so we have to put our best foot forward.”
Blight is in a rare position, as his boss — another previous Australian title winner — is Paul Stubber, who knows Late Model racing inside out.
Although he managed to outshine his boss at the titles, Blight has enormous respect for him on and off the track.
“It is really good because I’ve spent time in America with him,” he said. “Him and his wife Alice are fantastic people and have really taken me under their wing.
“I feel like without their guidance and support, it would have been next to impossible in being able to achieve this.”
Blight was able to live out an ideal race for any driver, in which he started on pole for the A Main feature and face minimal headaches in collecting the chequered flag.
“We knew we had to be manoeuvrable,” he said. “The Motorplex always serves up such a fantastic surface, so if you have a fast car, you are going to get to the front regardless.
“There were a lot of good cars there and we knew we had our work cut out for us, but we kicked off the weekend well with Quicktime qualifying, started on pole and the rest they say is history.”
Heading into this weekend, Blight sits 14th on the Carbusters Pro Dirt Series points table, but he has appeared to put some early car hiccups behind him.
“Early on in the year, we hurt the motor in our first night out,” he said. “So that kind of put us in a hole.
“So from there it was all about the Australian title — that was the focus. Every time we hit the racetrack, it was all about getting our race car better for that championship.
“Because we did not have points to worry about, if we ran bad, it did not matter. We tried enough things to know what we both needed and needed to avoid.
“And it all paid off.”
Although he enjoys spending time in the South West, the 27-year-old is hopeful to one day race in the US permanently.
“It is a way of life,” he said. “If you want to be successful, you have eat, sleep and breathe it (speedway).
“I feel we do that and my wife puts everything she has into it as well, because it is a lot of fun to be a part of. We want to be racing full-time in America — that is absolutely our goal and we are working towards it.”
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