We're Back

After a few months sitting on the sidelines, Ros and I returned to Crail. We met up with Jeff Johnston, who we bought our new Wright chassis from, at the circuit on Saturday morning. Jeff had driven up from down south and he spent all day with us helping us set up the kart and providing pointers based on his extensive knowledge of Wright karts. It was really nice to drive and both Ros and I were very happy with it. However, given that we hadn't raced for a while, and that Sunday was the final round of the winter championships, we didn't expect too much from race day.

Sunday was dry, but cold - Ros managed to grab pole position on the last lap of quallifying, but when he came into the pits one of the engines was spluttering badly. I managed to find and remove some grit in the main jet in the carb, and we were ready to go. We decided not to try new tyres and see what happened. The teams in 2nd,3rd and 4th on the grid were all fighting for the championship so after the rolling start I stayed wide at the first corner and MBM and Milwalk came past. I then followed them for the next 20 mins or so when MBM pulled off to the side and left Chris of Milwalk with me on his bumper - it was like we'd never been away:-). I felt as though I was quicker and if we'd been in the championship, I had a couple of chances to go for the lead, but I decided just to sit there. I handed over to Ros at 30 minutes and once Milwalk pitted, it was fairly plain sailing with Ros winning by 8 seconds. I got the fastest lap on lap 34.

For race 2 we had to fit a new set of tyres as the ones we used on Saturday and in the first race were down to the bottom of the wear markers. As we had been on pole for race 1, we started last for race 2. I got a good start and made it up to 2nd behind Milwalk with Scott from Apollo close behind. However, after about 25 laps, the rear of the kart started to lose grip (the sun came out) and I dropped to third. Ros found the same issue and he just managed to hold off Panther racing to keep 3rd at the flag. Again I got the fastest race lap on lap 21.

For race 3 we made some changes to deal with the increased temp. I started from pole and knew that Chris was right on my tail and that when I made a mistake, he'd have a go, which he did. It was back to race 1 with me sitting right on Chris's bumper for 25 minutes. He pulled a gap of a second or so through traffic and then he went into the pits????? He normally runs around 40 mins before handing over so I didn't get it - but all became clear when I handed over to Ros - Because the winter championship was on the line, Chris was doing the whole hour himself. Ros finished a comfortable second giving us the overall win on the day which was a real surprise for us, and bodes well for the summer championship. (3rd fastest lap this time :-))The results of the Winter Champs aren't finalised yet but it's going to come down to a point or 2.

So, the new kart is great, and it looks like there will be 6 or 7 teams who can win the summer championship - bring it on!