Paul, Luke and Luke's brother Matthew - reliability rewarded with 8th place.
Toby was "busy" elsewhere so it was left to me (Paul) and Luke (along with Luke's brother Matthew) to defend Team- Motorvation's honour in Kart 24 (Tony Kart) at Rye House.
Traffic jams on the M25 and A10 meant that we did not arrive at Hoddesdon until 2:30pm and being "careful" with our racing funds we decided that £40 for one hour of free practice was excessive - especially as we could get in for free at 3pm. So we parked up by the entrance and prepared the kart outside the track before we were allowed in at 3pm.
The kart started on the button and we each took it out for a few warm up laps…. Matthew commenting favourably on the acceleration (should point out that he has only been on "fun" karts before !).
No dramas (apart from a Cadet trying to commit hari-kari on me by the pit lane entrance !) so we went into qualifying reasonably hopeful of a mid grid position but the best I could manage was a 37.43 before the yellow flags came out - Luke managed a 37.47. The time for 6th place (which we knew to be a Max) was a 36.06 so it wasn't looking too promising.
As expected the grid position was a lowly 16th out of 19…….. oh dear, it looked a long way to the front (see photo)…. Time to clean the power valve … yes we had forgotten and it was certainly not moving freely…
Weight (or lack of it) was also proving to be a problem until Luke managed to buy a ton of lead sheet from another team. This was then skillfully moulded into the seat and with it and Luke in the kart we reckoned he would tip the scales at 167kg (the min weight is 165) after his stint.
So we took the other lead bar off assuming that I would be fine weight wise….. the strategy being Luke to start, me to do the mid stint then fuel up again for Luke to finish.
Now we had the weight sorted and the power valve cleared perhaps if Luke just kept the kart on the black stuff for a couple of laps we could get some positions back…
Alas no, the red mist descendeth once more and Luke went for a gap on lap one, hairpin one…… on cold tyres….. say no more - I certainly can't repeat what I said as this is not the first or even second time that Monsieur Hallard has blown it on lap one !! One of the photos says more than a 1,000 words…
I've said it before and I'll say it again - I want to start as I can't believe I would be so impetuous at my ripe old age, so the other two need to eat more to get their weight up to a decent level so they can finish on an empty fuel tank and still be over 165kg !!
Once Luke got it started again he was a man on a mission and posted our fastest race lap at 37.45 on lap 6…… followed by a monumental coming together on the back straight (not his fault !) which saw him catapulted over a spinning kart and in to a fortuitous gap in the tyre wall. Slightly shaken but not stirred and with no harm done to driver or kart (apart from bodywork damage - see photos) he carried onto the first stop where I took over…..
Lap times continued in the mid-37s but as the session wore on the tyres went off really badly (this was their second race…), the understeer became more and more pronounced and I was struggling to get into the 37s at all.
No drama apart from being passed by the Bilands (how much are they ??) with regular monotony and so as planned I stopped after 20 mins and after fuelling up (which costs about 10secs) Luke took over for the final stint. I weighed in a 166kg, only 1kg over the minimum so we had cut it pretty fine !
He too struggled with no grip and was also in the 38s…. which is about 2.5 seconds off the fastest lap. New tyres, or drivers, required !!
But he battled on manfully and we eventually ended up 8th overall as quite a few karts retired with accident damage or mechanical failure.
Talk at the end of the day was of a shiny new kart for the 2003 Summer Series….. "Dear Santa…." - problem is we will have nothing to blame our lacklustre performance on. Roll on October - the September race date clashes with an Individual event at Buckmore that Luke and Paul are doing (Toby is doing "family" things… or so he says….).
PS How do you reverse a van with a small trailer - I don't remember horse boxes being that difficult !!!!!
Saturday August 17th Round 5 of Summer Championship
