Rye House, 20 October 2002

Keeping it on the black stuff (most of the time) results in 7th place.

A damp drizzly afternoon greeted us at Hoddesdon - my demeanour not helped by the fact I (Paul) had stupidly left ALL my kit including helmet, suit, boots AND waterproofs in the garage !!

Kart set up involved the usual swap of slicks for wets, 9Y plug changed to 8Y, and front wheels set as far out as possible - a liberal dosing of WD40 and dampstart was also thrown in for good measure as the drizzle had turned to a bit of a downpour!!

Incidentally, any similarity between our kart cover and three black Herts Council refuse bags was purely coincidental.

Free practice was a slippery affair, but after a few laps I realised that the lack of effectiveness of the brakes was not due to the amount of water on the track but due to a lack of brake fluid !!

We topped up the system and Toby went out to try them (brave man !!) after a few laps he was back in again. Lack of fluid in one of the reservoirs again indicated a slow leak…. No time to do anything so we went into qualifying with dubious brakes. Not as bad a s it sounds because in the wet braking is far more gradual and from slower speeds but a bit nerve racking nonetheless….

I went out first and despite a bit of coughing and spluttering (the kart not me) I managed to get down into the 51secs mark which was good enough for 8th on the grid, Toby went out again, but soon found that the brakes were going off again so he called it a day without managing to improve on the 8th place.

So we lined up in 8th out of 18 (As Owen helpfully pointed out there were more karts behind us than in front so we were in the top half) and because the weighbridge was inoperative the usual hassle with keeping Toby's weight up to the minimum wasn't a problem so I could start for change - much to Toby's delight "ha, so its my turn to take the mick out of you when you lose it on lap 1!"… thanks !

A non starter meant I lined up 7th and when the flag was waved for the start we all piled into turn one and I managed to keep to the inside whilst others slid wide and found myself in 5th, then someone spun at the next hairpin so I was 4th, then I ran wide and was 6th and then got outbraked into Pylon bend so was back to 7th…. All in the space of lap…. But others soon fell by the wayside and I was soon back up to 5th.

I spent the next few laps hard on the heels of Winston (current championship leader no less) and soon felt he was holding me up, so I waited a couple of laps then tried to take him on the inside at Pylon but found there was absolutely no grip on the inside so ended up at 90 degrees to the intended direction of travel heading towards Winston who was now turning in…. collision was narrowly avoided but the kart bogged down and I lost another couple of places. Back to 7th !!

This see-saw of spins and semi-spins continued until I handed over to Toby, at which point the scoreboard was showing we were 5th and lapping in the low 51s which seemed OK, although the leader was lapping an incredible 2 secs faster than that !!, but I think our unusually high position was due to other teams pitting early. We then lost some time in the pits as I was expecting Toby to have some brake fluid ready to top up the reservoir with - however this was news to Toby as it was still locked up in the van (where is Ross Brawn when you need him !!), I then had to give back Toby his helmet and gloves (mine were still in the garage) so all in all we lost a few valuable seconds but not too much.. but the brakes were pretty well useless when I came in so I wasn't sure about how Toby would find them…

However he went out and immediately starting mixing it, but was obviously soon suffering from excessive brake travel and so was doing well to hold position in 8th…… (a couple of times when I was watching I thought he was going to go straight on at the hairpins !!) I decided to bring the next stop forward to replenish the brake fluid…. Good idea - until Toby decided to stop 10 yards short of the pits because he thought we couldn't work on the kart at the compulsory stop point, but I had already cleared it with the marshals so we spent a few seconds with the usual "can, can't, can, can't scenario" between the pair of us (ou est Ross Brawn ???). I think he may have been right but the marshals had been ok about it on this occasion… As he was leaving the pits, waved on by the marshall, a quick glance to the right averted a nasty accident as there was a kart approaching at full tilt. Fortunately the brakes were now working and an emergency stop left a Biland behind him with no option but to hit our kart fairly hard. Fortunately no harm done but the hand signal as the Biland sped off into the distance was less than dignified. Next time they can go first!

A drama free and deliberately sensible steady run to the finish saw us in 7th…. Not sure how many of those that finished in front of us were Bilands but the wet weather is a great leveller so can't really discount them from the results in the rain….

Things to do - fix the brakes and give the kart a really good clean !!!

		No pictures this race.