UK Endurance ProKart Championship 19th-21st Aug 2005

Last year I was supposed to join the Apollo racing team for this event, but somehow I didn't make it, so I wasn't going to miss out this year. I asked the guys how hard it would be - Eric replied that "If you can do 3hrs in a hire kart (much heavier), then the 24hr will be no problem" "Aye", said Ros, "It'll be easy" - They had never been to Whilton Mill.........

I couldn't take Thursday off, so I flew into Luton on Friday morning where I met up with Ros, who had flown in from Edinburgh. We picked up our hire Ka, and got the the circuit, which is near Northampton, in just over an hour.

The plan was that each of us should do 10-15 laps just to get a feel for the circuit and the conditions, which were warm and dry. I was pretty much last out, and couldn't believe how physical it was - bumpy, fast corners and no real straight of any length meant that you were constantly working hard. After my 10 or so laps I came - I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was the quickest in the team so far. This meant that I then did the majority of the setup work and got down to a 44.40 after around another 40-50 laps. But I was getting worried, I had blisters on both hands and was pretty tired. I later found out that every one else was the same, and we were all wondering how we'd get through 24hrs.

Once we'd, stripped, cleaned and rebuilt the kart, we finished up around 19:30 and headed back to the Travellodge for a shower and some food. We had a chat with another Scottish team, XLB, about the circuit and they were in worse state than us - they only had 3 drivers as opposed to our 5. Still, we got a good night's sleep and arrived at the circuit at around 9 in preperation for 10 o'clock practice and 10:30 qualifying.

Scott and Eric, the kart's owners, had decided that they'd do the pracitce along with Noel, leaving me and Ros to do the qualifying laps. I got on circuit with around 15 mins to go, and was lucky enough to find some space to record a best lap of 43.90. This put us 13th/36 on the grid. Again this put me 6/10ths clear of the next best time from Team Apollo. I've only been racing for 5 years, but I've always found it easy to learn new circuits, with less than 10 laps usually being enough to get on my pace.

For the race, we'd decided that Noel would do the first stint, followed by me, Scott, Eric and Ros. As I expected, Noel picked up his pace and was consistently running in the low 44's with a solitary 43.86 as his best - Noel has raced pro-karts for years and had also been at the Le Mans 24hr earlier in the year - he's undoubtedly the best driver in the team.

Noel and I are of similar weight ('though he's a good 3 inches taller) and we both needed to carry 2kg of lead to make sure that, even with an empty fuel tank, we be over the 180kg minimum weight limit. This meant there would be less to do at the change over from Noel to me as the ballast would stay put. We figured that 90 minutes would use most of the fuel in the tank (Max capacity limited to 7.5litres) - So we called Noel in after 90 mins, at 13:30, for the change over. As you leave the circuit you have to stop on the weigh-bridge to ensure you meet the minimum weight. Presuming you get the green light (a real one!), you then drive around 5M to the limbo bar that marks the start of the re-fueling bay. As a driver you have to switch off your engines and push the kart under the bar to the refuelling guys. Once they've filled it, and returned it to you under the exit limbo bar, you then can have your team mates help you get the engines fired up and walk the next driver to the pit exit. So started my first stint in a 24hr endurance race, but even in the pit lane, it was plain that the engines were ticking over way to high, to the point that I had to carry the brakes all the way to the pit exit to ensure I stayed at walking pace. I had got my braking points pretty well marked during qualifying, but found that I couldn't brake that late in the race, whith the braking points moving back 5+ metres. This cost me 2-3/10ths and my best in this stint was a 44.18. When I came in for fueling, it was still the same - we found that the throttle stop bolt had come loose, so the carburetor butterflys were getting put under extra stress which had bent the mechanisim, which in turn stopped the valve closing fully. Still we got it fixed and Scott started his first session.

By now my hands were a real mess, and I spent an hour or so figuring out how best to tape them up so I could still drive. From then on we continued, problem free through to Sunday morning - I had an interesting 90 mins between 6Am and 7:30ish - There had been no rain, but as the sun came up a morning dew settled on the track making it very slippy off-line, which made overtaking interesting:-)

By this time we were firmly established in first place in the clubman class and 10th overall, so we had no need to push - despite Scott having to pit due to a collision with XLB, we stayed comfortably in the lead and won our class by 35laps.

Thinking back, it was very, very tough both physically and mentally - Without Noel's stash of chocolate, I don't think I'd have made it :-)

I hope we can defend out title next year, wherever it's held.