Whilton Mill December 9th 2007
Round 1 OEKC Winter Series
The forecast had been for worse weather than we found when we arrived at the track, but it was still chilly and although it wasn't raining the track was definitely wet. Temperatures were due to go down and the rain increase, so it was good to see a decent number of competitors. The Saxon teams were back on the grid, there were a couple of Prokarts and some new Rotax teams.
With the engine having been rebuilt by Steve Ogden and the brake once again by Dartford Karting we were looking forward to the first round of the Winter Series. Everything else was the same apart from the weight limits which had been reduced to 75kg for both the Rotax and the Biland teams, who were also now on the same handicap.
We put on some intermediate tyres for practice and James went out first with the new engine. It all felt fine and bringing the front in and taking out the front bar while keeping the tyre pressures low seemed to be the best set up, although without the ultimate turn-in ability we sometimes achieve.
Thomas qualified us in 12th position with a 63s lap and although James then went out and got into 62s it was too late to be recorded as a qualifying time.
Before lining up on the grid for the start we changed to brand new wets, still being cautious with the tyre pressures - keeping them at 10psi in case the promised rain never turned up.
As Thomas started the second warm up lap, all doubts about the weather were resolved with a torrential downpour and the race started with the drivers struggling for grip and visibility.
A hard driven AJB Racing bulldozed past at the start dropping us down a place and the Biland of Saxon I went past reducing us to 15th place for a few yards before Thomas re-took AJB.
In these very wet conditions the tyres weren't really working as they should have been and Thomas was struggling a little.
But he was making up places lap by lap and after some initial difficulty getting past the Biland of Stirling Benz, in 15 minutes we were back past our starting position and still moving up.
By lap 20 we were up in 8th and although a couple of slow laps dropped us down again to 10th we were back in 7th by lap 37.
However we were definitely off the pace and needed to change something to go faster. Thomas made a signal across the front of the kart which James interpreted as him wanting to change the front spacers, so got all the necessary tools and spacers ready in case he signalled he wanted to come in early.
But in fact he stayed out there and was now getting into the 61s lap times. On lap 54 he got his fastest lap of this session with 61.54 moving up another place on the next lap.
It was now getting near the time for a change of driver and James brought him in after 68 minutes for more fuel.
The changeover was a bit scrappy at 226 seconds - we hadn't really thought it through properly and were missing Edward's influence in organising the pits.
Furthermore Thomas had been hoping to put on the front bar, not change the spacers, but since none of that was ready James just went out with the same set-up. It just served to prove what we've always said that trying to do any non-standard signalling between the pits and the kart and visa versa is pretty much a waste of time.
James found the kart good to drive, with no real vices - apart from it being a bit slow to turn in - BUT ... it was slow. Both drivers were driving well but still other competitors like Appliance and Red Max come past at speed and with ease.
The engine felt good except that it seemed to be developing a quirk of a power boost towards the top end of the rev range. This made life quite exciting at times, but was OK as long as you were ready for it.
James was driving steadily and without much drama getting his best lap of 61.71 after 15 laps.
We had dropped back down to 8th at the changeover, but soon made up places so that we were in 6th by lap 74 and into 5th on the following lap.
There was then a lull as James consolidated our position but as we reached the 100th lap we got fourth position. AJB were still out in front in the Prokart but being chased down rapidly by Red Max, Appliance and Saxon II. All these were well ahead and going faster than us and our best prospect for getting any further up the board was to keep on unlapping AJB until we had got ahead. But there were quite a lot of laps to go.
The changeover to Thomas after 72 minutes was better but not good except that we used up some time to put another 5psi into the front tyres.
This made the kart feel a whole lot better and although we had lost a place in the changeover to 5th again, Thomas held that position all through this stint steadily unlapping AJB - though not without incident.
AJB seemed to be driving to try to keep the Rotaxes behind him - a futile gesture - and twice Thomas found himself in difficulties trying to overtake. The last time resulted in a dinged side pod while the first resulted in an off track excursion.
Thomas also managed to lock up coming into the the Boot but that simply resulted in a safe spin onto the grass.
His speed in comparison to the front runners was much better - though still not on a par - but on lap 138 he got the best lap of our race at 61.51s.
The final stop after 66mins was half way respectable at 156secs and we decided not to take up any further time by making more changes to the kart at this stage.
This was the right decision as James got back up to 4th again as Red Max made their final stop but suffered an ignition switch failure which took them a long time to repair.
Once they were going again they were decidedly faster than James and overtook him reducing us to 5th before spinning at the top of the hill. We were back in 4th for a lap until Red Max came past again - James was really not bothered as he thought they were still laps ahead - but then they spun again five laps later and this time the battery decided enough was enough and refused to turn the engine over.
So we were then 4th and finally 3rd as James unlapped himself for the final time from AJB.
At the end he was just 30 seconds in front of Stanion Slicks who had been shadowing us for much of the race.
A good result for us showing that perseverance pays off, but we need to be faster in absolute terms in the next round. We think probably that the tyre pressures were the cause this time, and that given the amount of water on the track another five or ten psi all round would have been beneficial. The engine quirk got worse towards the end of the race - possibly in line with a reduction in air temperature. It may be a jetting issue - but the jury is still out on this one.
The full results are here and Gary's report of the race is also available.
R e d S t r i p e R a c i n g