Round One of the Winter Series lived up to its name - it was a bitterly cold day and everyone was wearing an extra layer of clothing to keep the frostbite at bay.

The day started off well the kart started easily and Toby took it out to try and get some warmth into the tyres, brakes and engine..... to varying degrees of success, it was very, very cold...... Then we noticed the radiator wasn't blanked off, a bit of tank tape soon reduced the cooling effect of the icy wind and then it was our guest driver of the day's (John Cooper)'s turn to a do few laps to remind him how unlike the handling of his Porsche 928 is the handling of a Tony Kart....

We each had a couple more goes of 6 - 7 laps (about as much as you could manage without your fingers dropping off) and then it was my turn again, but after a few laps lapping in the 38's (on cold tarmac and ultra hard slicks) I suddenly lost 70% of the brakes braking for the hairpin at the end of the back straight..... this was the start of our troubles......

Investigations showed that we were losing a lot of fluid from the caliper and the pads seemed to be sitting too far off the disk resulting in excessive pedal travel. So we took the caliper off to see if there was an easy remedy..... and of course there wasn't, so we filled it with brake fluid and I went to see if they had any new pads - but of course being a Tony Kart with its "unique" parts they didn't ....

So we bolted it back together and we took it again, but couldn't get to grips with lapping in the 40s, but I thought the brakes were fine now and eventually got back down to the mid-38s once I had got the tyres a bit warmer. Then Toby went out did some low 38's but soon came back in with a smoking rear caliper...... looked like the pads were rubbing..... but then we realised that one of the pad locating bolts had come loose ... (my fault - I obviously hadn't tightened it enough...). Quick trip back to the spares shop revealed once again that a Tony Kart can be a liability, no bolts to fit !! No bolts, meant no brakes which meant no racing, which meant time to go home and we were still just doing free practice.

Then I had a brain wave.... the shop did have suitable bolts but the thread was too big for our pads..... so I got them to tap and die the back of the pads to fit the larger bolts.... bingo, we were in business with 15 minutes to go before formal practice started..... except that one of the pads had been damaged during the operation and looked as though the material was about to come off the backing plate......hmmmmm....

Funnily enough I was volunteered to take the kart out first.... it seemed fine and indeed practice was completed without drama, except that it had now rained and Toby and I were both lapping, on wets, in the 45s. However the track was drying, albeit staying greasy.

A quick check round the pits before qualifying started showed most people on wets..... so we stayed on wets , but the track was drying all the time....

My fastest lap after 6 laps was a 41.75....... then Toby went out and managed 42.02 (placing us 3rd at the end of his run) so we were obviously going to be on the pace. Qualifying finished without further drama and we found ourselves 4th out of 11 (3rd Max).

During the interval before the race we again checked the pits and now it seemed 50/50 wets to slicks.... but as the grid formed interestingly enough everyone in front had slicks.... but too late to change now.

As usual Toby started (due to his weight problem - he doesn't weigh enough..... or is it I weigh too much ??) and stormed into 2nd (1st Max) by the time the first corner had been negotiated, things were looking really good as he started to edge away from the pack.... Then on lap 2, kart 22 which had started from the back suddenly appeared on Toby's shoulder and squeezed past (John and I had seen his progress and both hoped that Toby would just let him go....) but the red mist was down, and of course Toby just assumed it was someone whom he'd just passed trying to retake his position, so he tried a demon outbraking maneuver into the second hairpin....... which nearly worked..... but, a half spin and stall meant that the pack got by. Not the end of the world as we had still had 38 minutes to go.... but then it got worse, the kart would not start, despite numerous attempts it just would not fire so Toby had to get out and drag the kart off the apex to safer place.... then luckily it started, but by then we were two laps down on the field.

Toby gave chase and started to reel in the tail-enders who were in fact still nearly two laps up..... but after about 10 minutes I could see the track was nearly perfectly dry and I knew the wets would be being shredded, so I made the decision to call him in to put on slicks, hoping to steal a march on the other teams on wets.... oops number one...

John and I laid out the slicks and tools to help a speedy change but I had guessed the wrong socket size for the fronts.... Toby came in as requested - vociferously protesting to me about something, I think it was about the change to slicks when he was on a charge, but then he saw the shredded remains of the left rear and became calm.... until the socket wouldn't fit the front wheel nuts.... oh dear, temper, temper.... then as we were changing over John mentioned something about rain in the air, but time was pushing on so Toby went out on slicks as planned..... oops number two 3 laps later it started to rain and Toby did some admirable impressions of "waltzing maltida" before coming back in and saying "its your fault we are on slicks - you drive the bloody thing then, Ayrton bl00dy Senna .... ".... temper, temper.....

We didn't really have much choice about the tyres as the others were just too badly worn.... so I went out on slicks in what was now fairly wet conditions for the last 15 mins.... (wishing we'd at least put the wets on the front) to say it was interesting would be playing it down, and I spent most of the first few laps finding the limit all too often, but once I had worked out where the almost non-existent grip was and how to see through my misted visor we started to reel people in but far too slowly.... but at least we finished..... albeit somewhere near the bottom...
So roll Round Two on 12th Jan...... but I think I'm going to have to start the race this time as in the last two races the youngsters have come undone on the first couple of laps... it needs an old wiser touch... or maybe not....

Paul.

 

Rye House, 15 Dec 2001