Bayford Meadow; Round 1 Promax Winter Series October 18th 2003
Finishing position: 19th
We were fielding a full team once again with Richard coming back after an absence of three races.
We felt pretty optimistic.
10 o'clock and practice started.
But our engine didn't.
Change plug, check fuel, check electrics, blow through fuel, try again, swear, sinking feeling, take off air filter, massive choke and......
...it started.
10 minutes wasted.
James went out to try to establish tyres pressures. Kart has understeer going into corners and oversteer everywhere else.
Unhappy.
Changed to new slicks and Richard, but with only three minutes of qualifying left and he could only get in one lap.
So now we had the choice of using an unscrubbed set of new tyres or using the set that we had practised on, and which had done 6 hours at Clay. We didn't have to worry about wets as the weather was good with bits of sunshine. So we decided on the old tyres.
James started having qualified in 16th and immediately zipped past Zero who looked as if they had oiled up on the start line.
A few laps later and they came past again with Auto Racing and Nakamura in tow. Basically for the next half hour the four teams swapped places fairly frequently with Zero gradually getting away and James ending up at the back and feeling less than comfortable with the handling.
On lap 29 he got the fastest lap of our race at 52.095
and on lap 30 while trying to get back ahead of Auto Racing, Red Stripe's nosecone just clipped Auto's rear wheel riding up over it and bringing both karts to a stop.
James was away first but Auto soon banged their way past again.
At this point the pit team made a decision to bring the kart in and try and find out what was happening to the handling by using the rest of the race as a test session.
We used the time well, stopping another twelve times, with Richard doing all the testing and James having a final go in the last half dozen laps.
Thomas didn't get a look in
We came 19th - not last. You don't seriously want to see the rest of the results, do you?
Makes you think........doesn't it.....
Roll on Round 2 at Buckmore
R e d S t r i p e R a c i n g