Daytona Milton Keynes March 1st 2009
Round 2 OEKC Summer Series
The question was: would we able to start with slicks or should we use up the intermediates or use a brand new set of wets?
James' rather lacklustre qualifying achievement for almost last place persuaded us to start on new wets, partly justified by the track still being wet enough for spray to be showing as the karts went round the circuit.
Slicks were definitely out - only Appliance Maintenance thought otherwise and paid a hefty price for a gamble that didn't pay off.
The two warm up laps were rather fast and furious and James got left behind at the start only to make it up again and more by the first hairpin as he moved into 9th position.
He was however still struggling with what he should be doing when and although he more or less kept 8th position TT Sport in sight he couldn't make any headway to catch them up.
Lap times came down a little but not by as much as expected as the track remained resolutely wet, especially down at the bottom end.
Within about an hour James had a achieved a lap of 69.469 and the track was definitely showing a dry line in places.
After a generous 72 minutes to allow the track to dry as much as possible, the pit crew - who included Edward Robinson, once again - called James in for more fuel, a driver change and a change to slick tyres.
Although it was going to be very difficult on slicks for the next ten laps or so, it still made sense to change now, rather than come in again when the track conditions were at their optimum.
However in between James receiving the pit signal and the end of the lap, he forgot he was meant to come in so did an extra lap on the wets. Apart from confusing the pit crew this did us no harm.
Thomas got out in 8th but then Boxed In and TT Sport came past as he got used to the tyres.
In fact he was doing pretty well, getting down into the 70s within half a dozen laps and to 67s within ten.
By now he was up to 9th again getting past Red Mist as they pitted and then 8th and 7th as he went past TT Sport and Red Max.
Some full course yellows delayed him a little but lap by lap the track was drying out and the times came down until on lap 117 he got his fastest lap of the session at 60.652.
At this point after 68 minutes of driving, the pit crew brought him in again for a fuel change and a change back to James again.
But we were delayed when Thomas noticed that the steering wheel had come loose. So we now spent some time trying to tighten it, for a long time without success, because, as we discovered it had sheared off inside the steering column.
It look ages to get the stub out and a new one put in, before James could finally take to the track again.
We had lost a lot of time but were still holding on to 7th, but only for a short time as James did a neat spin on the entrance to the esses and Red Max came past half a lap later.
Another spin in exactly the same corner did not help matters and we soon dropped to 9th.
But on lap 140 James managed to get our best lap of the race at 60.58s and by lap 150 we were back up into 7th again.
On lap 160 Box Tech came past and James followed them closely until the first hairpin after the esses. At this point driving styles unexpectedly differed and Box Tech's surprisingly slower entry to the corner caught James unawares and pushed him into the back of them and then the tyre barrier beyond.
Fortunately Box Tech got going again very quickly but it took a bit of time for James to restart the engine. A lot of time - though not positions - lost and a track rod bent which we didn't actually notice until after the race had finished. James also saw at this point that the radiator bracket had partially broken, though this was more likely to be due to general vibration and the bumpiness of the track rather than to the crash.
We remained in 7th for the rest of the session and Thomas took over after about 66 minutes of driving.
This time the pit stop went relatively well and quickly although we took the opportunity to take out the front bar.
Thomas was out and down into 61s and then 60s very quickly and from there he drove very consistently to retain though not improve on 7th position being held back a coupe of time by full course yellows once again.
A reasonable race but just too many small things going wrong stopped us from doing better. And we can probably get the kart going better than it was.
The next round will be back at Whilton Mill so onto familiar ground once again.
Results are here.
R e d S t r i p e R a c i n g