Whilton Mill October 19th 2008
Round 7 OEKC Summer Series
It was a dry day as we arrived from Cambridge and the weather forecast was for it to stay that way, although as the day wore on it did become significantly murkier.
The majority of the setting up had been done the day before, so there wasn't much left to do apart from checking the tracking, retrieving the lead seat (we had left it behind after the last round) and weighing the kart.
Thomas went out first in practice and found it fine except that the Steve Ogden rebuilt engine was misfiring badly.
James went out with a larger jet but this didn't really seem to solve the problem.
So we did a quick change to the spare carburettor and this restored the engine to full working order.
The kart felt fine if not blindingly quick and James qualified in the middle of the grid.
The only thing that seemed a bit odd to him was that the chassis felt a bit soft and that we were grounding more that usual. James thought at first that it must be a flat tyre, but they seemed OK so he put it down to his mechanical hypochondria.
At the start, James made up a few places and after a few laps was circulating well, but was a bit off the pace of the leading karts.
Also the grounding was definitely getting worse and James thought that the front weight must be coming off. But as far as he could feel they were still properly attached, so he continued on.
He got down into the low 50s but try as he might he couldn't get below this - he certainly should have been in the 49s. His fastest lap was 50.12 on lap 16.
He was up to fifth when he spun at the entrance to the boot as he tried hard to get a bit more speed into the corner. But no damage was done and he didn't even leave the track.
Soon after he was due to pit and looking at his fuel level he began to panic a little.
He signalled that he wanted to come in, and Thomas brought him in on the next lap.
We completed the re-fuel and driver change and were just doing the walk down the pit lane when James bent down to look at the chassis and saw that it had broken in the middle of the side rail.
It was pointless - and dangerous - to go on, so that ended our race.
Tim Gillard has now very kindly offered us a replacement bare chassis for the price of the metal, which is very good news and with any luck and a lot of work from Thomas should enable us to race on November 9th.
We're looking forward to it - a trouble free race would make a pleasant change after the last two outings. Results are here, for what they're worth.
R e d S t r i p e R a c i n g