Pre Summer Series Shakedown
Both karts out testing at Rye before the start of the Summer Series. Usual suspects Toby, Paul and Luke are joined by John the kart 27 reserve driver, Tim practicing before the Clay Pigeon 100cc Challenge race on 7th July and Bob a seasoned 100cc Challenge driver from the KH3 team.
A relatively relaxed start to the day saw the first outing for the Team Motorvation van and newly acquired trailer. An impressive angle iron and wood panelling affair that would look more at home taking garden debris to the dump than transporting a championship winning kart team! At least it tows reasonably well, holds a decent amount of karting paraphenalia and will scrub up with a bit of paint and some stickers.
The testing sessions started on a bad foot with both karts suffering from what are known in the business as "shagged" tyres. A late decision to buy some practice tyres made by Veloce (of Taiwan) even both karts up and made nice squealy noises bracking for corners but the general impression is that they are too soft, inconsistent and look rubbish. Back to scrubbed YEQs for the next seesions.
The feedback from all drivers was that the karts were "jumping" round stadium bend so changes were made to front and rear track to try and dial this out. Kart 27 responded well to 10mm narrowed front and became more forgiving in the process. Kart 24 was felt to benefit less and we'll revert back to the original setup for the next race.
Best lap times in the 36 sec bracket confirmed that the karts are on the pace for non-race spec tyres and changing to MG slicks should improve this by 1/2 sec a lap.
The day ended on a low note with the temp gauge on kart 24 reading 255 C. It was probably higher but the Alfano seems to max out there. With normal operating temperatures below 100 this was obviously wrong and a quick survey revealed a catastrophic water leak where the side bar had worn through the radiator casing. A new radiator (ouch they're expensive) and some judicial modifications to the side bar will be needed before the summer series.
Why are things never simple........
Special thanks: to Vanessa who is the first cheerleader I've ever seen cooking bacon sarnies out of the back of an Astramax.
No race pictures today but one of Schumacher testing with Tonykart in Italy. Shows we're in good company with kart 24.
And finally check the links page for the latest updates from the Baruntse 2002 expedition team.
Rye House, 6 Apr 2002
