Buckmore Park January 22nd 2006
Round 2 Club 125 Winter Series
Tony Cruttenden had done a lighteningly quick rebuild of our engine, just before Christmas, so we were looking forward to seeing how it went.
There were no doubts over tyre choice this time, as for once all the weather forecasts were agreed it was going to be dry all day - even some sunshine - and the prospects certainly looked OK as the team arrived at the circuit first thing in the morning.
Thomas had done all the preparation so it was just a question of swapping over the wheels with a new set of slicks on them, and we were ready and waiting for the start of practice.
Practice began on time and Simon Blease arrived to help with the pits again - always very good to have him with us.
Running in the engine carefully, Thomas found the engine beginning to misfire badly and came in for a change of plug. Coupled with a bit more speed, that seemed to do the trick and when James took over twenty minutes later it was going well. He got it up to full speed in the final laps of free practice and then Thomas took over to qualify.
He got a good time of 42.563 which gave us 7th on the grid of 21 karts after Feature Windows had been bumped down the order, presumably for coming in underweight - or some other infraction.
The start went pretty well with Thomas edging ahead of Red Max Racing but falling victim to a very fast starting Feature Windows who had moved up from 8th to 4th by the end of the first lap.
Then as the pack came down the hill, the left hand front wheel on Hyde Racing's kart came off and shot about forty foot into the air. As their kart came to rest in the tyre wall on the inside of the track the following karts mentally cringed as they wondered where the wheel was going to land. Thomas slowed slightly to give himself some steerage way and Red Max took the opportunity to go through and luckily the tyre came down without hitting anybody.
This left us still holding position in 7th and for the next lap it looked as if we might make it past Jason in the SRP kart for the next position up. That is until full course yellows were shown and the field bunched, banged and bumped into a very slow moving snake.
After a couple of laps the race got going again and Tom found himself being rather vigorously pursued first by Dogz and then by Rapid Logic who he had overtaken when they dropped back from the lead on lap 10.
Dogz dropped back two places after they had gained and then lost the position within a lap and Thomas managed to pull out a bit of distance on his pursuers.
It didn't last for long and Onwatch Racing had caught him up by around lap 30 and then got past him to take over 5th position for half a dozen laps.
Once back in front, and with a bit of clear track Thomas dialled in Red Max as the next target - they had been managing to stay just far enough ahead to be only a glimmer at the end of the pits straight. Tom started to reduce the distance between them as he moved up to 4th when Feature Windows' race came to a early end.
We had been going for just over forty minutes by this stage and the Pit crew, at least, were feeling pretty happy with the race so far. And then the rear bumper fell off. In fact, luckily, it didn't come right off but just came adrift at one of its fixing points and pivoted down onto the track.
Less than five minutes in the pits was enough to cable tie it back on, refuel and change to James.
4th to 15th was a bit of a disappointment.
However James was managing to remain on the track this time and whether by good driving or good luck was steadily moving up the grid.
He had some fast laps but also some slow ones and wasn't able to stay ahead of Kartmasters who went past him at the very start of his session or Steve Stapley in the SRP kart. He had a second chance with SRP when another period of full course yellows got him back to their back bumper. But he couldn't stay with him for long.
By lap 75 we were 12th; by 85, 10th and then 9th well before lap 95.
Dogz came past having found some considerable speed but they were laps behind.
Finally in lap 112 we got up to 7th and in a final push James got in two fast laps, the best one being the best of our race at 41.905.
One wonders why he couldn't have pulled his finger out a bit earlier......................
And that, apart from two unfortunate incidents on the far pits hairpin, which almost wrecked our race completely but in fact simply trashed the nose cone, was that.
It was a good race and good fun and we felt well on the pace. And from now on we'll cable tie the bumper before the race starts.
There are some photographs if you're interested and full results are here.
Visit the Club 125 web site for the Championship standings. We're 5th at the moment with a good chance of a podium place, but unfortunately we have to miss the final round, so we can only go lower at the end.
R e d S t r i p e R a c i n g