Bayford Meadows July 20th 2008
Round 4 Rotax Endurance Summer Series
Its July, we're over half way through the year and this was only our second race. With that sort of racing schedule you can't expect to be near the front, but we were certainly going to try.
The weather at least was on our side - well, at least in the sense that it was warm and dry with a bit of sun from time to time.
It looked at as if the grid was going to be full with 22 karts registered for the race, and it was good to see the Titan team once again and get an update on their expert recommendations on tyre pressures.
We then put on a new set of Maxxis and Thomas went out first in practice.
The engine sounded horrible, missing badly on right handers, so we changed the carburettor and after Thomas had verified that it now felt fine, we sent James out to get a decent time.
But the engine still wasn't good, missing badly less than half way down the main straight.
A larger jet - twice - eventually got a better engine response but it was still necessary not to floor the throttle if you didn't want the engine to start stuttering.
Next, onto the handling which with the Maxxis tyres at 13psi hot simply wasn't working. We took the front in and James was just warming up for a quick lap when qualifying ended. We compromised by going out again by another 5mm at the front. In retrospect we should probably have left it narrower at the front and put the bar in the back.
Another 15 to 30 minutes testing time would have transformed the kart, but for the moment we had to live with what we had.
What we had was the last row of the grid with a time of 49.047 so Thomas would have a good view of any potential pile-ups in the first corner.
In the event there weren't any but by the end of the fourth lap Thomas was up three places into 18th with Jade Racing sticking close on his back bumper.
By lap 9 Jade managed to get past but then a couple of laps later both of them overtook Ikonn Racing to give us back 18th again.
By this time Thomas' times were improving and he had got below the 49s mark with a lap of 48.965 but Ikonn weren't giving up and came back past on lap 20 only for Thomas to regain position a couple of laps later and on lap 28 to get our fastest lap of the race at 48.419.
Thomas seemed to be coping with the after effects of Labyrinthitis pretty well, but following an incident in South Wales when he got trampled by cows, his ribs were beginning to protest.
So after a bit under thirty minutes racing he signalled to come in. This would leave James to drive the remaining hour which he should be able to do without having to re-fuel.
The pit stop went reasonably well except that fuel tank cap got cross threaded by the re-fuellers, which meant James started to feel petrol sloshing all over his legs. He slowed to undo the cap and get it right and this probably contributed to the rather slow changeover and outlap time of 122 seconds.
We had only dropped one place in the changeover so James found himself circulating in 19th position without much in the way of competition.
His times were pedestrian, sticking solidly in the mid 49s with forays into the fifties as leading karts lapped him.
On lap 63 he got his best lap of the race at 48.900 but this was the only time he was able to get into the 48s.
However, more by attrition than good driving he got into 16th place by lap 56 and stuck there for the rest of the race. Despite the handling of the kart being pretty reasonable, controllable and unintimidating, it just seemed to lack grip, whatever James tried.
A portion of the blame must be put on the fact that this was only our second race in eight months and on a track we hadn't raced on for about eighteen months, but there's no doubt that given more time we could have got the kart gripping a bit better and the engine working a bit more powerfully.
But it left both of us fired up to get it right next time in September when Thomas' ribs should be 100%, his Labyrinthitis should be that much better and we shall be back on familiar tyres and track at Whilton Mill.
Results are here.
R e d S t r i p e R a c i n g