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 :-)