Brass Monkeys

Team ITW (That's Neil & Fraser Purdie, young Dom and myself) had another outing at Scotkart on Wednesday night, competing for the Construction Cup. I don't think I've ever felt so cold at an indoor event and the lack of heat showed in the lap times during quallifying. We were never headed at the top of the timesheets from lap 1, but the times were not good, with Neil setting our fastest time 3 laps from the end of the 25 minute session , with a 30.24. This was surprising for 2 reasons: Dom is usually 3-4 tenths quicker than the rest of us, coz he's 2 stone lighter, and in early December Neil's qually time was 29.74. Still, we were .25 seconds clear of the field.
Neil started the race and had a good stint (quickest of 29.60) and handed over to Dom with a lead of a couple of seconds, which Dom extended to 20+ seconds (quickest of 29.28). We had all planned to do 30 mins, but because the karts can't run for 2 hours without a re-fuel, there was a mandatory pit stop for fuel after 50 minutes. We changed driver at this point with Fraser putting in a consistent 30 mins (quickest 30.20) to hand over to me with a 12 second lead. I pushed hard and had increased the lead enough (quickest 29.48) that we could afford a fourth pit stop to put Dom out for the last 10 minutes, so he could try for the fastest race lap - he really went for it and with only a minute left posted the fastest lap of the night with a 29.21. Not an easy victory, but very satisfying - Especially as nothing broke :-)

A New Record

But in all the wrong ways. Today's endurance was bit different as there were 12 folk, all doing the 90 minutes on their own. As is the norm for January in Scotland, it was pretty cold and the track while not fully wet, was still damp enough to keep lap times at least 10 seconds the wrong side of a minute. After quallifying Stuart Gray was on pole with me second and then Brett, Dominic and Michael all seperated by a few tenths. As part of the endurance race , we get to do a warm up lap before the start - the brakes just wouldn't work well - I put it down to them cooling down post quallifying and managed to make a decent start maintaining second. Given that the track was surely going to get quicker throughout the race, I decided to do my mandatory pit stop on lap 1. I nearly wiped out the tyres on the way into the pits, but convinced myself that I just needed to push the pedal harder. So back out and into the first hairpin - when I say into, I mean literally, as I ended up buried in the tyres. I then nursed the kart back to the pits and took out one of the spares. Kart 2 was pretty good, and I was running a good pace, untill the right engine seized solid after about 45 laps. Kart 3 was great through the right hand corners but was really slow through the left handers because, as I found out a few laps latter, the brakes were binding on during lefts - they eventually failed , again into the hairpin ( a big braking area!). So back to the pits for kart number 4 - I only got to the pit exit, coz the right hand engine was not stopping when you took your foot off the throtle - probaly a broken return spring. So finally kart number 5 - It stopped well, and went left and right, but was really slow - Everyone else in the race did their fastest lap sometime in the last few laps (75-84). I did mine on lap 44. Michael also had 4 karts, so it's not just me. Five karts in an hour and a half - beat that! Raceland are due to get the new 320cc single engined karts in April - Can't come soon enough. A crap day only made bearable by the drive I had on Saturday in Ferarri F430 F1!

Getting There!

Sunday at Crail raceway was an eventful but ultimaltly frustrating meeting. The track was still damp from Saturday's rain, so we completed both practice sessions on wet tyres. And we were pretty quick, qualifying second for race 1.
Whilst on the grid, Ros noticed that the front bumper was missing it's 2 securing bolts, but we hadn't enough time to fix it. Ros ran well for his 30 minute stint and handed over to me in a comfotable second place. I got to about 2 seconds behind the leader when the front bumper came loose through the tight in-field section. With the new 'dustbin lid' front panel the only thing stopping the bumper from falling off, I expected to loose time to the leader, but I contuinued to catch him. On the entry to the roundabout (top corner), I got up the inside and was just getting back on the power when the whole front panel/bumper caught under the left front wheel and sent us both off the circuit. I got back on quickly and extened my lead only to get the black/orange flag as the panel was swinging around on evey corner. We lost nearly 10 laps fixing it and finished race 1 last, despite setting the fastet lap. I quickly found Eric, and apologised for taking him off - I think he understood that it was just one of those things. By this time the track had a dry-ish line and I was adamant that we should go with slick tyres for race 2. Around half the grid thought the same. I'd got up to around 5th but managed to go off at the roundabout on lap 5, losing about half a lap. The rest of my stint was spent catching back up with the leaders. Ros also had an off at the same place in his stint but we still finished 5th. Race 3 was our best yet with a solid run to 2nd , over a lap up on 3rd place. We reckon that there is still some more time to come from setup as we were running way too much castor in the dry, so we're hoping for a win next month.

Things can only get better

Sunday was my first race meeting of the season and it couldn't have been worse - really!
We arrived at Raceland around midday to find a good turnout for this non championship
meeting. It was only 2 degrees and the track was very slippy during practice. At least there was no ice (well, not much). In heat 1 I started 12th and I got no further than the first corner before one of the engines failed. So I crawled back to the pits and jumped into a spare kart, re-joining in last place and 2 laps down. I managed to get the fastest lap of the heat but was classified as a non finisher. It was then straight back out to start third on the grid. This time I made it to turn two before an enigne stopped. It restarted OK, but I was again last. The problem was the clutch on the left hand engine was binding so coming out of both hairpins it was on the verge of cutting out. I managed to work my way back to 7th by the end, but wasn't happy!. In my 3rd heat I got punted into the tyres at the first corner,
again having to get out of the kart, but this time to extract it from the tyres. Again I set the fastest lap of the heat, and at that point of the day, finishing again in 7th. My friends reckoned I had all the bad luck going and Mr Alsop uttered the famous words " It can't get any worse". Well, as expected it did. I made a good start from 8th and was up to 4th. The fastest part of the circuit is a long downhill straight into a flat out (in the dry) right hander. The guy in 3rd braked for this corner and spun off allowing me to go for the inside; unfortunatly he
bounced off the tyres straight into my path. It was a big impact, and my kart was pretty broken.
It was a long walk back to the pits....

So 2 7th places and 2 DNFs for my worst ever finish at Raceland. Next weekend I'm off to Crail to partner Ros in the 3 x 1hr races. Let's hope he doesn't read this