A Black Day

Things started out badly at the Scotkart Race of Champions on Monday night, and they only got worse. It was evident from the start of qualifying that our kart was a bit slow - the best we managed in practice was a 30.4 when last time we were there, a 29.1 was our best (by Dom). We asked them to change our kart, but they wouldn't. No matter, we had still sneaked into second place and looked OK for the race. Neil started and got into first place where he built a lead of around 25 seconds. Fraser took over and when we were called in for our fuel canister change at around 50 minutes(the karts are gas powered these days) he still had a lead of around a second. We lost over 10 seconds in the change but Dom quickly caught the leader and passed him, only to be sidewalled by a backmarker(more of this kart latter). Sidewalling is the practice of turning across the nose of someone who is overtaking you forcing them into the tyres/plastic pipes that define the indoor circuit. It's not allowed but there are parts of the circuit that the marshals can't see. Dom was too eager to get going again and he pushed himself out of the tyres, which got him a black flag only 10 minutes into his 30 minute stint. As part of the black flag process, you also have to be stationary in the past for 30 seconds, so it's really a 2 lap penalty. So out I went and I pushed really hard. I lost count of the number of times I was sidewalled by one kart in particular. I got past it but I kept catching it every 15 laps or so and always had the same issue. I was back up to second and only 4 seconds behind the leader when again I caught the same kart. I knew he was going to try to sidewall me so when he turned left into me , I turned right and kept my foot down. This meant that when we went into the next corner (to the left) I was on the inside and he went off. The marshals decided I was to blame and black flagged me - my first ever in 6 years of racing. I had been out for 45 minutes, so Dom did the last 5 minutes or so, and we finished 3rd. That should have been that, but as I walked into the changing room, the 'driver' from the kart I had robustly passed confronted me about my driving standards! He seemed to think that sidewalling me was perfectly acceptable and that that moving to the left of the track approaching a left hand corner was the racing line :-) We nearly came to blows - apparently I had steam coming out of my ears. Thinking about it now, I'm embarrassed that I lost my temper, but at the time, I was ready to rumble.

I know we shouldn't have got so involved as we were racing against 'non-racers', and our kart was down on power (I posted our quickest lap of 30.00 against a previous best for me of 29.4 - a big difference on that track) giving us the 4th quickest lap time out of 9 teams, but when the flag drops, the bullshit stops and you just want to win. I wasn't the only team member to be pissed off by the whole event. Neil was so fed up he has decided that he will not be going back to Scotkart!

Still, it doesn't matter much - Less than a week to go :-)