Toby and John compete whilst Paul tramps round
in a muddy field iwatching WRC cars pootle about not looking very impressive.
After retrieving the kart from Paul's garage, under the beady eye of the neighbours
who didn't seem remotely surprised that we took the van in preference to one
of Paul's fleet, we set off for Rye House. Arriving at the circuit we realised
fairly soon that the car shuffling had resulted in the fully charged battery
being left in the back of Toby's car. Doh! Fortunately Deavinsons came to
the rescue and relieved us of £23 for a new charged one. (everywhere
else charges half that but beggars can't be choosers. We also had some new
front SL7's fitted as the old ones looked a little worse for wear.
A now customary bleeding of the brakes saw us setting out for practice. John
hadn't driven for a year or so, in which time the circuit has been extended
so he set about learning it afresh. Both of us felt the kart was fine but
still lacking in the braking depatment so some more bleeding and a few tweaks
saw us going out again.
We missed the start of qualifying and on the next outing it had started spitting
so we qualified 13th out of 14. Not so good.
Between qualifying and the race the spitting continued and a survey of the
pit lane revealed a pretty even split between slicks and wets. John summoned
all his skills as a fisherman and predicted more rain (the skies seemed to
confirm this) and we opted for wets. Ours were pretty old and expendable so
we gambled that even if it dried and we trashed them they'd end up as slicks
and we would be that upset.
3 minutes before the race the spitting stopped and more teams frantically
changed to dry tyres. Being lazy, and not that quick and changing tyres, we
decided not to so John went to the grid wearing the slightly less popular
wet option gaining a few "you must be rich - they'll be trashed in 5
laps" comments from the rest of the field. John had a knowing look though
as he dropped from 13th to last in the first 50 metres.
After deciding that he could actually drive it a bit quicker than that he
started catching and passing 3 of the tail-enders. About 5 laps in the heavens
decended. Fine for Toby as he had full use of the single set of waterproofs,
not so fine for John who got soaked and found it difficult to clear an oil
slick on his visor with only the use of an oily glove.
Good news for the team though as one by one the drivers on slicks came into
the pits, threw their toys out of the pram, and stomped around while their
team mates hunted for wets, pumped them up and fitted them losing a couple
of laps in the process. By this point we were up to 7th.
John started to notice the kart grounding a bit more than usual and not being
able to keep up the same pace as before at the same time that Toby saw the
front right wheel bouncing up and down on the entry to left hand bends. Very
odd.
Two laps later when he was called in for the changeover it was obvious that
something was wrong with that wheel. A quick check revealed that the king
pin bearings had self destructed. Not just worn a bit, there was absolutely
nothing left of them and as a result the wheel was able to move up and down
by about 6cm. Very wrong and an executive decision by Toby that this was unacceptably
dangerous ended the race prematurely.
So, once again, back to the garage for more repairs. New bearings all round
plus a check over everything else to see what might go soon.
So, a disappointing DNF after a surprisingly strong race. Due in part to the
changing weather and some inspired tyre choices from John (Kettley as he will
now be known!)
26 July 2003 - Summer Series Race 5
