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Yet Another Titan Victory
Round three of the winter series started with an announcement from the
organiser that the series will cease in its present format on the 8th
January at Bayford Meadows. This means that the round originally scheduled
for Buckmore in February will not now take place and the series therefore
becomes a four rounder in which the best three scores will count. Less
than economic grid levels has made a travelling series unsustainable but
the Promax class will not disappear from the Bayford calendar. The class
will be welcomed as an addition to the Sunday 3hr Prokart endurance and
full regulations for this will be available shortly.
The grid size was diminished this month as some teams prepared for the
coming season, others got talked into going Christmas shopping and still
more decided to re charge the wallets after a busy summer. The entry was
just eleven teams for round three and what is now to be the penultimate
race in the current format. A very green circuit proved to be a little
unsettling for some as they struggled to find the right set up and it was
to be a slightly unusual line up on the grid for this race. Martin Davies
of PDQ took pole aboard his new Cosmic chassis. Misfits achieved their
best qualifier to date and enjoyed a front row start for the first time.
On row two were K1 Racing who just snatched the inside line from SRP by a
tenth. The mighty Titan found themselves down in the midfield, though that
was to prove little hardship with so few karts on the grid. Dogz and Zero
Racing both had mechanical nightmares of their own and gridded up together
on the back row.
At the start it was PDQ who took the lead and maintained it for ten laps
before losing a place to RSM. The former hung on to second for another
twenty odd laps but then shed a chain at hairpin two. The reason turned
out to be a very slightly bent axle. This had been noticed moments before
the start but too late for any remedial action prior to the start. Zero
suffered engine problems right from the word go and retired to the pits
for a prolonged stop. Titan and SRP diced for third place in the opening
minutes but SRP were to lose out big time as the race neared the one hour
mark when they ran out of fuel. Titan took the lead at around the one hour
mark and were to remain in control for the rest of the race.
Around the same time K1 moved to third place but thirty minutes later
there was a four kart pile up involving Titan, K1,
Red Stripe and Auto 1. K1 collected a
bent track rod in the incident but all four were able to continue racing.
Race leader Titan lost ten seconds in the process. After their earlier
miss calculation SRP were now on fire, the fastest kart on circuit and had
even managed to unseat K1 for third place. It was all looking pretty good
for the team when, they ran out of fuel a second time! After such a good
first half, K1 began to experience carburettor problems that were to
hamper their performance to the end of the race. Dogz were similarly
‘dogged’ with bad luck and suffered from lack of power in the lower rev
range.
This left an open door for Auto 1 who latched on to the back of the lead
trio for a time before losing the place to Red
Stripe soon after. Refuelled now, SRP were back on the case
and it soon became apparent that a top three was still on the cards
despite the teams lack of mathematical precision in calculating the fuel
consumption. Despite the earlier promise shown in qualifying PDQ were
never really in the race and completed less than half the distance of the
race leader.
The final half hour was a period of consolidation for the top three and
there was little chance of any further place trading. Titan had a near one
lap lead over RSM who were similarly unchallenged by SRP a lap behind.
Auto 1 continued to circulate in fourth place, enough for a decent
allocation of points but too far back to make a podium charge in the
closing minutes. Titan took the chequer for the second race in sucession
and move to the top of the leader board. RSM came home in second, their
best result of the season and SRP took third place, 45 points, giving the
team a four point deficit for the series lead. Auto 1 earned sufficient
points to hold series third and by a comfortable margin over K1.
What will now be the final round of the winter challenge takes place at
Bayford Meadows on the 8th January and the timetable and format remain the
same. Our summer champions will be receiving their awards at the London
Kart Show on the weekend of the 11th and 12th of December.
Report by Alan Wood
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