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The hottest day of the year greets
Paul, Luke, Toby, Martin us at the newly extended Rye House circuit.
We took both karts along to finish off setting up kart 24 which had handled so badly last weekend and kart 8 to actually race. We soon found the problem with 24 - my accident back in April had obviously damaged the king pin and bearings and so there was far too much play at the front ... we replaced the king pin which had been bent but it was still too loose…. in fact the front wheel was so slack and impairing the handling so badly that Toby just drove straight past me when he was in kart 8 (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it !).
So we resigned ourselves to just "playing" in 24…. but even that was short lived when we found that the small drive sprocket had virtually no teeth left causing the chain to slip under load (i.e. when trying move forwards with my lithe frame in the kart…) ….. by the time we had got it fixed it was 3pm and we had effectively run out of time because briefing was at 3.30 prompt.
Meanwhile kart 8 was handling very nicely thank you. Martin who had come along for his first go in a non corporate hire kart acquitted himself well. Unfortunately the Alfano sensors were not active so we couldn't see his lap times but he looked smooth and only had one "off" - which we all did, as we tried different lines through the new corner. Toby's off was the most dramatic, causing a miniature dust storm (see photo).
All we did to kart 8 for the race was put on some new tyres, fuel up and clean the pods….then we were straight into practice….. Toby first, then Luke (with "ears" in full flight - look carefully at the photos) then me, the idea being that I would continue straight into qualifying…. I managed two laps then the chain broke…. PANIC…. (chief suspect being an earlier heavy clout of the new kerbs that probably weakened it - really must fit the chain guards which are still in tool box !) Qualifying was due to start in 4mins…. so Martin came in handy as he ran to the shop whilst we took the old chain off and prepared to fit a new one… which was soon done (eat your heart out F1 mechanics !) and thanks to a problem with the track's timing system we were ready to roll before qualifying started - was it going to be our lucky day ?
Qualifying saw Toby easily the fastest of the three of us as on my second lap with warm tyres I out braked myself, messing up that lap and the next one cleaning the crud off my tyres. Luke was whacked having been partying for the past 3 nights and wanted to save himself for the race. Toby's lap of 39.37 put us 11th and 6th Max out of grid of 22, the four places above us were separated by 0.3 of a second. The fastest Max was 38.52 so we were pretty close. However the fastest Biland was 36. something !!
At the race start Toby was soon up to 9th and catching the guy in 8th place Biland but although he caught him within a few laps, he was difficult to pass and so this allowed a bit of pack to congregate… with one guy getting past them both before Toby could… the 13 mins went without further drama and soon Toby was in to hand over to Luke… bit of a panic as Toby had seen someone he thought was Luke calling him in to change over, Luke meanwhile was sauntering around the pit lane - but he made a quick recovery and we lost no time.
We rejoined in 11th and Luke set about trying to gain some places, he got past a couple but it wasn't clear if they were backmarkers, and he put up a good fight stopping others getting past, but when he came in at the end of his stint he reported that the brakes had "gone off"….. then it was my turn and I soon found out what he meant…. I was very conscious of some karts being much quicker than me and so I just let them pass whilst I concentrated on getting past those in front.. not easy as it seems with dodgy brakes.. I probably got past 2 or 3 and got passed by 4 or 5 - not good odds !! My only consolation was a lap of 38.87… and at last a kart that handles well enough to lift the inside rear wheel ! Not sure where we ended up but it wasn't in the all important top 6 so we left to go home reasonably happy but still wondering when the first pot for kart 8 will appear…
3 June 2003 - Summer Series Round 3