Such a Perfect day

Spring is here at last, and we had a day of sunshine, and great racing at Crail Raceway, for the first round of the Summer Endurance Championship. The last two MSA Sprint meetings at Crail have been cancelled due to lack if entries, but we had 27 karts out today - weird?

Any way, at the last round of the Winter Series, we (RD Racing) achieved out first win. We were a bit worried about the kart as Ros had to strip the whole kart down to weld a new brake bracket on. He then sent it away to get powder coated and , because of the easter weekend, didn't get it back 'till last Wednesday. So he spent many late hours rebuilding the kart, and fitting the new brake system. He only finished it late last night, so we didn't know what to expect.

There was some issue with the timing system, so the grid for race 1 and 2 were drawn from the hat - In practice I reckoned the kart was as good, if not better , than it had been last month. I started 13th in race 1 and 15th in race 2. Both follwed pretty much the same pattern, with me chasing, and getting past, Chris Miiler (Milwalk) and Grant Murray (MBM). The kart was handling fantasticly well, and I handed over to Ros in P1 - Ros and I drive totally differently, but post very similar lap times, so Ros took the chequered flag in both races. In both races I had set the fastest lap time of the day, (1 on short circuit and 1 on long) so for race 3 I startd on Pole. Chris got past me once on lap 4, but I got back past him at the next corner, and that was it. Again I handed over to Ros in the lead, and he extended that lead by the flag. He also beat my best lap for race 3 by 6/100ths to give us a clean sweep of fastest laps and race wins.

Craig and Neil, from the F'Sport team for Thailand, were also there and despite losing 14 laps min race 1 due to being punted by somebody (not me!) managed to finish in the top 10 with a 6th in race 3 being their best result to date.

Does it get any better?

And then home.......

Random Thoughts

I've now got 2 weeks of my current contract left - Was supposed to be 'till the end of June, but such is life. I was also supposed to be racing in the Britsports series at Snetterton in a supercharged Radical on the12th/13th of May, but not if I'm out of contract. Time to hit the Jobserve site.

Like any big company, the place I've been at for the past 2 years or so is riddled with politics and process, but in general, the contractors and permies are up for a laugh, which helps get the job done. I've met some good folk, and learned lots, so all-in-all, a good contract.

I've also managed to get to the gym 2-3 times a week (at lunchtime) which has helped me get my dodgy knee back to a semblance of normality after being told, in 2001, that it was not going to get any better. At that point, walking more than half a mile made it swell up and become pretty painful. However, I played in my first 11-a-side football match on Sunday, after the endurance karting, and have been playing in a weekly 5-a-side game for the past 18 months. Knowing what I know now, I don't think I should have continued to play Volleyball for so long - don't get me wrong, it was the focus of my life for years, but I should have stopped after the first knee op, not the fifth!

Most folk seem to go out and get hammered when they leave, but not me (or Dom who's been terminated early as well). We're having an endurance kart race (predictable or what:-)) next Tuesday - Maybe they'll give us the old (for old read faster) karts! Then it's the Go-Live party next Thursday evening - Methinks that it could be an eventful evening, with at least 50 people due to leave over the subsequent week or so. DeMob happy me? Never..........

Slow, Slow, Not Quick, Slow

Raceland finally got their newRX7 karts - They are made by Sodi and have a single 270cc engine - And they are really slow.

My best lap in one of the twin engine ProKarts was set when they were new and on decent, Dunlop, tyres. The fastest lap today, set by young Dom, was over 5 seconds slower. Even in recent times, with the harder tyres and old karts, anything over 60 seconds was really slow with high 57s/low 58s being on the pace. The problem is that appart from the 2 hairpins and the 100 degee left, all of the corners are easily flat out. In the ProKarts, there were a few corners that needed the driver to balance the throttle to keep momentum up - now anyone can just go flat everywhere. And because of this, if a lighter driver gets on the throttle, out of one of the corners that requires braking, at the same time as one of us ~75kg guys, he pulls 2-3 kart lengths from there to the next braking area.

Today I was sharing a kart with Jack, who is part of the F-Sport team for the Thailand trip at the end of June. After 15 mins of qualifying we were in 12th place, which seemed odd - I took over and as I'd never driven one of these before, I pushed to see what it would do. I could see Young Dom catching me so I let him past and tried to follow him, but on the straights he pulled away really quickly. At that point, with 5 mins of the 30 min qualifying session left, I came in and swapped karts. Allthough I only got 4 laps, on cold tyres, this kart was a second and a half quicker, and we ended up in eighth place. Not a good sign with brand new karts!


Jack stated the race and got us up to 6th place where we stayed for the rest of the, processional, race. My 45 mins passed really quickly, but was pretty boring as there was no real driver input.
When I started my stint I was half a lap down on Michael, and with another 2 laps, I'd have passed him - Thata was about it - A fastest lap of 61.8 against Dom's quickest of 61.1.

These are the same make of karts that we will be racing in Thailand, but thankfully, the engine is 30% bigger! Maybe I need to think about buying a kart again.

The Karts Last Stand

At last - after today, no more of the old karts at Raceland (or so we're told). The new Sodi karts are being shipped later this week. Back to today, which started out pretty wet, and the format was adjusted to the same as last month, coz they didn't have enough serviceable karts. Race 1 saw me start 7th and finish 2nd. A pretty good start - The wet conditions allow slower karts to be competitive. In heat 2 I made a great startfrom last and was up to third, but the first time I had to use the brakes in anger the rears locked up and off I went. I recovered to fourth by the end but still felt at least second had been on the cards. For the first six heats, the kart on pole had won every race (kart 2) - I had it for heat 7 and true to form, it was way quicker than the other 2 karts I'd been in, and I took an easy win. In heat 9 I started from fourth, but with the track almost dry, I decided to go for it on the first few laps - It worked and I got to first which I maintained to the finish. This put me in the lead for the day, with one heat left to run - Young Shaun, who would equal my points total for the day if he won, was starting from the back and he made up a few places through the first hairpin only to be stuffed into the tyres by one of the neanderthals. But that just made him drive harder, and we watched in awe as he caught up with and passed the whole field to win by just over a second. Stunning. That put us equal, but Shawn beat my best lap time and so he took top spot. Still, second is a good result, and now we can look forward to some real racing next month.