Clay Pigeon Round 7; August 3rd 2002
Finishing positions:
Round 7: 19th overall and 10th in Clubmans
The team collected the night before at The Yeovil Court Hotel, Heidi and Richard coming down from Cambridge and James with Thomas, Jo and Rose arriving after spending a few days in Cornwall.
Heidi usually attracts large quantities of rain whenever she comes to a race meeting so it was no surprise to drive through mist to get to the circuit first thing on Saturday morning. But it soon went and the track was dry and hot.
We worked on getting even tyre temperatures over their whole width and eventually with new tyres Thomas got down into the 38sec lap.
In fact he did rather well and qualified us well off the back of the grid in 16th in a time of 38.683.
There was a quick clean start by Richard who held position, opening out a good gap on the karts behind but losing to the group in front which meant he was running without much competition or excitement until he began to lap the backmarkers. Lap times were consistently in the low 39s with some 38s and we began to hope that if we continued running consistently and strongly we could pick up some places.
On lap 48 he got our fastest lap of the race at 38.805.
But only ten laps later disaster struck in the shape of GB Motorsport who clashed with Toshiba directly in front of him. He almost avoided the mess but just clipped one of the karts with the left hand wheel and the stub axle broke easily and cleanly away.
Pit Management sent out the rescue trolley and with Ted's help they lifted the kart over the barriers and pushed it at high speed back to the pits.
Thomas meanwhile was beavering around trying to find a replacement axle and eventually got one from Howard at MS. Surprisingly nothing else was damaged or bent though we had to change a track rod to get the length correct.
In the midst of this it began to rain and James had just finished taking off the rear wheels for a change to intermediates when it stopped again and Management decided to risk the slicks - the right decision as it turned out.
We had lost about 35 laps now, but hadn't re-fuelled because the only way into the re-fuelling bay is from the track. So we had to send Thomas out with only about 20 minutes worth of petrol.
Pit Management decided to keep him out there for as long as possible now so that we could take advantage of any change in the weather. Basically this meant a 20 min drive, re-fuel, and then another 30 minutes. James would then follow on with a half hour stint which would more or less bring us back to our original schedule with an extra stop to do in the final session.
However about 4 minutes short of the scheduled time Thomas began to signal that he was running out of petrol and he wanted to come in NOW. So he did, for a quick re-fuel and he was off again, running strongly in the 39s with a fastest of 38.899 and doing a fair bit of overtaking. CSF in particular seemed to be having an off day, despite having tested at the circuit the day before. Having said that they were still way in front of us, however many times we lapped them.
James took over and proved to be a bit off the best pace of Thomas and Richard seeing more laps in the 40s and 39s rather than 38s and not getting any better than a single 39.083. But he was consistent and overtook the usual suspects at the right moments.
Changeovers had been good so far and we had not been held up at all, or even needed to show the red to send the driver round again, and the change now to Richard was again smooth and quick with a 97.890 outlap.
The tyres had probably gone off a little by now, and it was certainly a little cooler than the start of the race, and Richard just missed dropping into the 38s with a 39.088
After 55 laps Richard swapped to Thomas with the fastest outlap of the race at 96.589.
Just short of the half hour mark in Tom's drive, Heidi's influence once again overcame the bright sunshine and it was obvious we were going to get drenched.
Management bought him in immediately and we were one of the first karts back on the circuit with James driving on intermediates since it didn't seem worth wasting a set of brand new wets on a hopeless cause.
The circuit was inches deep in water and we were worried that the engine would get flooded especially as we had forgotten to turn the air filter upside down for better protection.
It did splutter a lot but James seemed to be doing OK, in that at least he was staying on the track and doing a fair bit of overtaking although to his annoyance GP Racing who we had been lapping all day came past him and he was unable to stay with them - they must have been on full wets - that's his excuse anyway. (Neil from GP comments: "We run on old wets and what's this about this lapping us all day???? 27 laps adrift and 7tenths off our quickest says it all ;o) lol")
Apart from that he was enjoying himself enormously as the track slowly dried out and in the end he caught and overtook GP Racing again with his best lap on intermediates being his last at 42.145. Subsequent detailed analysis of the lap times show that he must have crashed at one point with a lap time of 61+s, but he denies all knowledge of it!
With 20 minutes to go Management brought him in for the final compulsory fuel stop, a change to slicks and a change back to Thomas for the final stint.
This was almost perfect timing as Tom immediately found he could overtake those still on wets whereas James had still been overtaking other karts on slicks at the end of his drive. Lap times came down rapidly from the 43/42s ending finally back in the 39s and punctuated only by a brief period off road when trying to get past SZR.
Apart from that it was a fast uneventful drive to the finish now with no more problems and we weren't last! For full results click!
Many thanks to Heidi, Jo, Rose and Zoe for coming down to support and help us - especially with the dull, boring and lengthy job of clearing up afterwards. Actually, Zoe didn't do much clearing up, but that's Zoe for you.
R e d S t r i p e R a c i n g