Half term family holidays, weddings and overdrafts meant a slightly lower entry for round three of the Southern Promax Challenge at Bayford Meadows on the 5th June. This was a shame as we were blessed with the first fully dry race of the season. I am reliably informed that the entry will be back to normal next month and augmented by at least one new team.

Open practice found most teams quickly on the pace though DOGZ were distinctly off the pace. SPECIAL RACING PROJECTS had suffered a broken chassis in testing the day before and despite a thorough welding job now found the kart a bit of a mare to drive. A few lap records had been broken in recent weeks and it would have been no surprise to find the class record smashed today. This would have had to be in early laps as the track quickly warmed to the point where lap records would remain safe and in the event, no one even came close.

As the free practice session turned inexorably into the timed qualifying period it was without DOGZ who had now tracked the problem to a broken reed valve and hasty repairs were underway. COBRA ASM set the pole time in their Open class kart with a 50.326 and thus secured the London Kart Show Champagne pole prize, a bottle of bubbly for driver RICHARD MOXOM. B&R RACING were quickest of the Pro Class entries and just a tenth shy of the pole time. Doing less well than I would have expected were ZLR, the ex British Champions who qualified 6th and MODELWORLDUK.com, currently 4th in the series who only made the penultimate row of the grid. Qualifying over it was time to grid up for the start of the four hour race. A glow of banana yellow at the back of the order indicated that DOGZ were back in the game, but as the pack rolled off the dummy grid to commence the rolling up lap, the yellow ones stayed firmly stuck to the tarmac and it was back to the pits for the team.
 

ZLR were having a bad kart day and it soon became apparent that they had decided to turn the race into a glorified test session. Frequent pit stops were followed by short bursts of on track action. The boys were then spotted changing a stub axle. The scrutineer wandered over to take a look and casually rotated the rear wheels. “Did you know your brakes are binding” he said. “Ah” replied ZLR, turning their attention to the opposite end of the kart. ICETEK came in for their second stop of the day and were again found to be underweight. Ten laps tumbled off the race screen and down the order they plummeted.

The race had, as usual, been very gentlemanly but just after the two hour mark there was a very unseemly incident in which a driver chose to take the law into his own hands. Having been gently nudged from behind this driver allowed the driver to come alongside him and then deliberately deposited him onto the grass and into the tyre wall. The result was a severely bent axle for KI Racing. I don’t like naming and shaming in race reports but I hope the offending driver reads this and goes suitably scarlet. After all, the karts were not even in the same class and therefore racing for separate points and trophies.

SD RACING managed to shed chains with almost monotonous regularity and always in a place that was miles away from pit access. The driver looked shattered as he once again hoisted the kart up on to the tyre wall for collection by his increasingly frustrated team mates. Meanwhile, back at the sharp end, the COBRA ASM versus B&R battle raged on in earnest with both teams virtually matched. The gap opened and closed with driver changes and fuel stops but it was obvious that the silverware was headed in their general direction.

The final hour or so of the race was a period of consolidation for most teams with no real dramas to report. B&R did manage to lose a lap through no fault of their own when a transponder hit failed to record on both the main computer and the back up. This is clearly shown in their lap chart, but was not corrected as it had no bearing on either the overall result or the class order. Virtually unmentioned in this report so far, RSM had a blindingly successful day though with no dramas there has been little to say about their progress. The team held overall third place as the race proceeded to its logical conclusion which would mean the Runner Up prize in the Pro class if they could maintain this to the flag. AUTO 1 were having their best race to date and were very likely to find that the first job on arriving home would be to remove that old picture of Aunt Maud from the mantelpiece to make way for some shiny new silverware.

In the closing minutes of the race there was a call from the marshal at Post Two:

Post Two: “I've just been hit by water from Kart 19.”
Race Control: “We’ll put the slippery surface flag out.”
Post Two: “But there’s nothing on the track.”
Start Line: “The drivers been sick in a big way look at his suit it’s covered in it.”
Post Two: “Ho F//k*&%!!"

In the final few laps of the race B&R out braked COBRA into turn one to take the lead. COBRA fought back but were unable to mount a challenge and B&R (Open Class) took the flag with a difference of 0.43 seconds on the clock. RSM came home eighteen seconds later for overall third place, followed by SPECIAL RACING PROJECTS (Open Class) and AUTO 1. Accordingly, B&R collected the Open Class win and COBRA achieved their first Pro Class win of the season and now head the table by six points. Last months’ winners RSM collected the runner up award this time and AUTO 1 take the bronze, their best finish to date. The unlucky dog award went naturally enough to DOGZ and the draw for lucky dog was won by REEVES BROTHERS.

The series returns to Bayford Meadows on the 10th July for another four hours of wheel to wheel action before heading off to Clay Pigeon on the 31st for a full five hours of fun in the sun.

Report by Alan Wood

The photos used in this report are by Greg Caira. You can view the other pictures taken on the day by visiting www.photo.epson.com and typing gregcaira@v21.me.uk in the visitor box. Many thanks to Greg for the pictures.