Whilton Mill July 16th 2006
Round 5 Open Endurance Summer Series
The last time we had driven in heat like this was last year in the Trackside series and that had effectively taken us out of karting for the following three months. This time it was even hotter and some of us were a bit worried about getting through the day.
But first thing in the morning the sun hadn't really got going yet, we had finished getting the kart prepared the day before in Cambridge and were all ready for practice.
The first problem hit at once: despite a clinical clean up and total strip down of the carburettor the engine was still misfiring badly in all the usual places in just the same way as it had done in our last two races to wreck our chances.
Having tried everything else the final option was to borrow a carburettor, and Jason from Red Max was very generous in loaning us their spare one.
At once the kart was transformed and after a few laps Thomas came back in to let James get on with the testing.
We didn't have much time left, having changed the carburettor, and were in and out of the pits a few times making changes. In the course of which James qualified us on 2nd Pole in a time of 40.75. Were things going our way for a change?
The start was as per the textbook and Thomas followed TT Sport into the first corner ahead of a fast moving Litigator.
We had decided to pace ourselves and especially not to go too wild at the start, so a gradual drop down the field to 5th place was entirely according to plan. Except that Thomas decided that enough was enough and re-took APC to get 4th back again with the Litigator ahead in 3rd.
Then all the handicaps were applied and we dropped down to 10th to begin the long slog back through the field.
On lap 25 Thomas got our best lap of the race at 40.90.
At the hour mark we were up to 2nd in the Max Class - Box Tech having dropped down for some reason - and 9th overall.
On Thomas' 99th lap he had been going for 68 minutes and it was time to bring him in as he got up to 7th overall.
The pit stop was fine and worked well except for the refuelling. The fuel jug seemed to be leaking as much petrol from the wrong places as was coming out of the spout. This delayed us and gave us total outlap of 161.40s.
The stop dropped us all the way down to 11th but from then on we climbed steadily up the leader board.
James was driving consistently, not matching his qualifying speed, or indeed Thomas' fastest lap but did get down to 41.07 on lap 147.
He was able to get past most of the karts he came up against fairly easily but Le Maverick in 51 proved difficult. He was slower, but only in sections where James couldn't get past and at Inkermans he stuck resolutely to the inside so blocking James' favourite overtaking manoeuvre. We were perhaps running the engine a shade too rich, because even slipstreaming up the hill James couldn't make up any ground. Finally Le Maverick went wide on the Inkerman's approach when trying to overtake a back marker and James belted past both of them.
After another 68 minutes, we had got up to 2nd overall and James was ready to come in.
This time the driver change went better and we got through in 126.7s.
The stop had dropped us to 4th overall but Thomas was circulating in the high 41s/low 42s bracket and it wasn't long before we had got up to 3rd and then 2nd by about lap 240.
Meanwhile James had crashed out in the back of the trailer - hoping that Thomas would keep going without support. And indeed he did lapping very consistently and not even putting a wheel on the grass for the whole of his drive.
By about half way through his drive at 13:40hrs Thomas was 1st Max and 3rd overall with TT Racing 11 seconds behind and chasing hard.
James kept Thomas out for 70 minutes this time - just long enough for us to get up into 1st place overall.
The changeover was OK but could have been quicker - we need to do some work on our refuelling jig before the next race.
James was out now in 2nd place with TT chasing and the Litigator in front. Again low 42s and high 41s seemed to be the order of the day.
We dropped to 3rd again for a spell but then got back to 2nd as the others pitted for fuel. Down to 3rd as The Litigator lapped us and TT came past - only for them to lose their exhaust baffle and promote us to 2nd again.
James unlapped himself from the Litigator and set up reducing the deficit but then came up again Le Maverick again. Blue flags not being used in endurance racing James just had to sit and wait for an opportunity or risk everything on a dodgy overtaking manoeuvre. It was a no brainer - especially as he didn't know if he was ahead or behind the Litigator - it just wasn't worth risking throwing everything away.
Also his neck was beginning to go floppy.
At the end we were just 39s behind the Litigator, 2nd overall and 1st Max, with Box Tech a bit over 3 laps behind.
An excellent race for us and a superb result. Our main weakness was the re-fuelling and we know we can get that working better once again.
Read the unbiased report on the OEKC site here.
R e d S t r i p e R a c i n g