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5th in a competitive field.
This 4 hour charity event was held at Hoddesdon using their GT1 karts and comprised of 17 teams each aided by a "professional" driver from karting, touring cars or Palmer Audi.
Team Motorvation on this occasion comprised Paul, Toby, and some imposters. Nick and Callum from Mercator and Darren from NatWest.
We were kart 17 but things didn't start out well when our "pro", Rob Jenkinson, 6 time UK kart champion, had to retire from 5th in the Pro race when the kart just died on him - he jumped into a replacement, but it was slower so we hoped that 17 would be fixed for qualifying proper....
Nick went out first but it was soon obvious that kart 17 was still not running properly as he was losing 5 kart lengths down the straight so he came straight in and we changed it.... for something slightly, but not much, better.
Qualifying, which the Pros had to sit out, saw most of us in the high 40.x to low 41s, but Darren managed a 40.49 which put us in 11th out of 17...
I started and as expected a lot of people got caught out in the first few laps on cold tyres and various "racing incidents" so by the end of my 20 minute stint we were up to 5th and clear of 6th.... but a long way from the front two.
Then came some controversy.... as I pulled into the pits to handover to Toby the marshals pulled the kart to one side stating that the brakes were overheating.... suffice to say I too started to overheat and complained that there was nothing wrong with them - to no avail - eventually they agreed to let Toby rejoin while I "discussed" this with the race control. (It later transpired that the pit marshals may have confused our kart with one that came just behind me who definitely did have very hot smoking brakes). As it stood we were now back in 13th place and not happy.
Whilst Toby was out putting in some consistently quick laps (apart from a spell when the number of spinners bringing mud and water onto the track made for treacherous driving) I managed to persuade Race Control (with some help from Rob) that it was case of mistaken identity and so they reinstated our missed laps and put us back in the pack (on the lap charts) in 6th.
Everyone in the team seemed to be still lapping
in the low 40s, typically 40.2 - 40.5 (apart from Nick who was blaming the
big breakfast for his times of v. low 41s and except Rob who managed a stunning
39.30 before settling into a very consistent 39.9 - 40.0 routine. We were
lucky with the first fuel stop which occurred conveniently for us and soon,
due to various on track incidents and problems for other teams we found ourselves
able to keep with the pack running in 6th..... but it was all very close as
there were 5 karts on the same lap after 2.5 hours.
After the next round of stops we were up to 5th but it was very, very close,
indeed lack of grunt down the straight saw us lose another position to drop
us to 6th... (we watched and each time on the straight our kart would lose
2 kart lengths to the others, only to catch up again on the bendy bits...
honest...).
Fortune smiled on us again (sort of) as we noticed that during his stint Rob had developed a slow puncture and so we pre-warned the marshals to get a spare ready as we called him in (pretty much on his allocated slot anyway) - the wheel change went smoothly (almost Ferrari like !) and then to add to our luck one of the karts just in front of us on the scoreboard piled headlong into the tyres just beneath the Motorvation advertising banner I had erected earlier (see photo). He was well and truly stuck and Darren drove passed him to put us 4th.
Then as we approached the 3 hour window the second fuel stops looked imminent.... decision time..... Darren was in the kart and gaining on 3rd place at 1 sec per lap, but his change time was due and they weren't ready to fuel us for another 6 minutes..... so we didn't want to change drivers only to have to stop again in 5 minutes for fuel. A quick debate settled it - Darren to stay out until fuelling - it worked he past the team in front for 3rd !!. Nick went out for the penultimate stint but found himself amongst some really quick guys (lapping in the low 39s) who were in 4th and 5th and despite a valiant effort, sure enough he was relentlessly reeled in and was eventually passed by both - leaving us 5th by the end of stint.
Callum took the final stint with the plan to just hold position 6th place was now a good couple of laps down and 3rd and 4th were 10 and 20 seconds in front so barring an incident they were just too far in front.... then he semi spun !! But no harm done and indeed we finished 5th - a good result considering the opposition and we were all well happy, apart from Nick who has decided to go on diet to try to find that 0.5 second !!
Televised Pro_Am Charity Race, Rye House, 27 Oct.