By MARK RAYNER

Two Bathurst girls have put in impressive performances at the 2010 Ladies Special Go Kart Event at Lithgow last month, finishing fourth and seventh in their division.

Shannon Furbank and Georgia Sonter both lined up in the Rookie class, Furbank exceeding her expectations to finish just outside the placings and Sonter overcoming her own woes to finish seventh after the heats and finals.

Eleven-year-old Furbank had the benefit of a new engine that had been blueprinted before the race to get it into peak condition but it wasn't known how competitive she would be after moving up from the Midget class.

"Last year Shannon was able to keep up with the front runners and she even won a race but this year she quickly learnt that she wasn't going to be able to keep up with the leaders, she was about two or three seconds off," Shannon's father, David Furbank said.

"Shannon was hoping for a top five finish and she was finishing around fourth and fifth in the heats but the result came from the final and she ended up fourth so she was pretty happy with that.

"There is a fair bit of pressure on the kids in the final race because it doesn't matter what they do in the heats. They can have a DNF in the heats and that's fine but if they do it in the final they finish at the bottom."

Sonter is a regular at the Orange Karting Club but made the trip to Lithgow for the Ladies Event

"It wasn't until afterwards that I spoke to Georgia's father and found out the story with her kart. She was running a Junior class car with a restrictor but it wasn't really powerful enough to drive the big wide tyres," Furbank said.

"Georgia will be moving up into the Junior class this year so he didn't want to buy another kart and that's why she had this one."

As well as the racing, there was also a focus on fundraising for the National Breast Cancer Foundation and Furbank was heavily involved, competing in the Charity Queen Contest.