I can't remember when we last had a wet race. At Whilton Mill on Saturday there was a definite possibility that we would, but at 8:00hrs the day was dry and fairly warm - if overcast.
We had Brice over from France to manage the pits for us and we spent some time perfecting driver and weights changeovers.
We also experimented with pit to driver radio communication for the first time, given the difficulty of effective signalling at Whilton. But it didn't really work and we didn't persevere. James could hear some other team quite well but only got brief bursts of static from our own system.
James took on the driving in practice and we tested a number of different set ups getting into 39s laps - but the kart felt pretty good whatever we did with it and most of any improvement was going to come from the driver.
Thomas took over for qualifying with new tyres and slotted us into 15th position with lap of 40.09.
Again, Thomas started the race
but at the first corner a spinning kart in front of him left him nowhere to
go but the infield and the resulting delay put him well back from the
leaders.
But no damage to the kart.
Over the next few laps he settled down and passed Axles of Evil and Hammonds Heroes which got us up to 13th at around lap 50.
Steady progress seemed to be paying off for us as usual and on lap 24 he got our fastest lap of the race at 39.58.
At 45 minutes Brice brought him in for fuel and driver change to James, using the time, while we waited momentarily for the fuel bay, to change the weights. But its a long slow pit lane and the stop cost us 171 seconds.
Part of this was due to James finding fuel sloshing all over him as he got to the end of the pit lane. Fortunately he caught the fuel tank top as it bounced off and screwed it back on - tightly this time.
Once on the track he was in 16th place, gradually moving up the order and driving consistently, recording his best time of 39.80 on lap 109.
Some laps later and we were up to 7th but with a drive-through still to do.
James was putting this off as long as possible because the fuel tank had just lost its fixing to the chassis and was in danger of bouncing off completely on left hand corners unless he held it on with his knee.
The pit crew were getting impatient however and ten laps from the end signalled him in for final stop.
With no re-fuelling to do this was quicker than last time at 122 seconds and James was out again, still holding on to the petrol tank with his knees but having dropped down to 11th place.
And that was where we finished - not bad, but I think we would have hoped to have been a bit higher.
But no time to spend thinking about it with just 75minutes available to get the kart ready for the 3 hour afternoon race. By now the threat of rain - and even a few drops - had passed and we were confident about it remaining dry.
Tom Neat, with Olive, turned up to bolster the pit team - he's done quite a bit of racing in karts and at present in sports cars - and perhaps he'll graduate back to karting again, so it was good to have him along.
Having screwed the petrol tank back on, we put some more padding on the seat where it had been digging into James' and Tom's ribs and some padding on the petrol tank where it had been wearing away James' knee.
Otherwise we left everything else more or less as before and Thomas was out in the driving seat for the start.
An uncharacteristically aggressive tyre warming manoeuvre on the warming up lap dropped him momentarily to the back, but he was soon able to re-gain his grid position in time for the start.
This time the start was completed without incident and Thomas found himself being chased by Zero Racing.
They swapped positions several times over the next half hour with Tom finally drawing away.
On lap 33 he got our fastest lap of the race at 39.91s and by lap 66 was up to 8th position.
We had decided to run 45min stints to reduce driver fatigue, although the downside of this was that we would have to re-fuel three times rather than two.
So on lap 67 Brice flagged down Tom for the first stop and the changeover to James was completed in 160s, this time without any dramas.
The extra padding we put on at lunch certainly helped, but both drivers were finding that their ribs were getting pretty uncomfortable, especially on the right hander leading up the hill and on the pits bend.
This was definitely having an effect on lap times although at this stage they were still reasonable. James was going round in the 40s mainly, with his best lap at 40.00s
James ended his stint having got back up to 8th again but did his best to ruin our chances by missing the weighbridge by a fraction as he came in. This despite a lecture from Thomas on the subject before the race started!
This led to a longer pit stop of 169s and we were down in 12th.
Thomas had a good drive gradually clawing his way back to 6th but suffering from rib bashing over the bumps.
A good changeover without any problems, for once, was done in 150s.
James was driving to survive now and despite having put even more foam on his knee was about a second off his previous pace.
In the last pit stop we had lost just one position but now we were back in 6th though with a drive-through still to do.
However it wasn't going to be that simple and on lap 222 James ran slightly wide on the pits bend and stayed on the kerb longer than he should have done. The next left hander was fine but as soon as he turned into the flat out right hander the left rear tyre folded off the wheel and spun the kart onto the grass.
Luckily Tom Neat had seen the tyre beginning to detach itself on the pits bend and was already getting the rescue team ready.
Brice and he trolleyed the kart at high speed back to the weighbridge to be weighed before Thomas put on a new rear wheel and tyre .
And James was out again in a remarkably good time of just under 8 minutes but that's still about three times longer than a drive through would have taken.
Once he had got used to the interesting change in handling with the new wheel, James was going at about the same pace as before and finished the race without further problems, in 9th place.
Back at the pits the tyre that had failed had been put back on the rim and re-inflated and seemed to be holding up OK - so we're waiting for more technical analysis on that one. [A couple of weeks later and its still OK- baffled]. Meanwhile we asked the Karting UK forum for their opinion......It also sounded as if the clutch was on its way out - dragging in a tinkley sort of way. This shows a serious clutch consumption rate if it really has gone again [Yes, it had gone and it went back to JAG who very kindly gave us a new one] Finally the brake disc had been damaged when the tyre went down, but it looks as if that may well be rescueable [Its a bit scuffed but not chipped or bent which given the treatment it received, puts it in a league above some other discs we've used; or perhaps it's the chassis design..]
Our thanks to Brice and Tom Neat for turning out to support us. After two race days in this series it really is apparent that the emphasis has changed from racing to endurance. But we can also see that we can cope with it and that even in this short period we can see improvement. Roll on the next round! [Yes, but not too soon; after a fortnight James' ribs were still hurting, and in fact he was unable to drive in the next round at Ellough]
Here are the full results and Neil Ashcroft's overall report on the races.