Crail Summer Endurance - Round 2

Yesterday marked my return to racing after my recent operation. I had made it up to Round 1 last month, but I was in no fit state to race. On that occasion I did the pit work for Ros who dominated to win all 3 races. So we expected to be somewhere near the sharp end at this weekend's meeting. Despite the heavy rain in the central belt of Scotland, by the time I got to Crail the weather looked promising, and with the strong wind drying the overnight rain from the track, we looked to be in for dry races. Just as I was due to go out for practice, we found that the front left tyre had a faulty valve so we had to change the front tyres onto different rims, which meant I only got 5 laps which was not really enough to scrub in the new tyres, but I still managed 5th quickest. Ros then went out for qualifying, but his times weren't registering on the timing system, so called him in. Later investigation revealed that the new transponder we bought, had failed after only 5 laps of use! So we had to borrow a transponder and Ros then went out to qualify. He was about 3/10ths off the pace which put us around 8th and he came back in saying that the kart felt very different to last month. Since the only thing we had done was change the tyres, we quickly put the old set back on, and back out he went. He was now only a tenth from pole and that got us 4th on the grid.

With hindsight, only competing 5 laps in practice was a mistake, but that's how I started race 1. I got pushed off at the exit of the roundabout putting me back to about 8th and then on lap 2 I ended up in the tyres at the end of the back straight, eventually rejoining in last. I mad a dive down the inside and the guy didn't see me - a racing incident......

So I spent the next 58 minutes going flat out - I could see the leaders and they weren't getting any further away, but I was only closing up very slightly. So by the end I got back up to 4th, setting the fastest lap (by 1/100th) in the process. We hadn't planned that I do the whole hour, but when I was called in Ros just said for me to go back out. By the end of the race the front tyres were at the bottom of the wear markers, so we had to change the tyres for race 2.

Race 2 saw Ros start from the second back row (reverse grid) and he got up to 5th by the change over but he was again 3-5 10ths off the front running pace of Apollo. I took over and found the kart to be very loose at the back and I struggled to get bellow 45 seconds. So a 5th place in race 2 was a bit disappointing. We took some time to look at the new tyres and discovered that the rears were 2cm more in circumference than is standard!

So we fitted the old worn out rears for race 3 and it was immediately apparent that we were back on the pace - we were still a tenth or 2 off of the pace of Apollo but quick enough for 2nd place. This gave us 3rd pace overall on the day, tied with Panther Racing. Not a bad result, but it didn't feel that way. Still, I managed to come through the day with no ill effect post operation. But I am pretty sore today - hopefully I can now start training again and be a bit more competitive next month.