Whilton Mill February 12th 2006
Round 2 Open Endurance Winter Series
Normally we wouldn't mind the prospect of a wet race - sure, its not very pleasant, but we usually do OK and it's a lot less tiring than belting round on a dry track. But on this occasion it was definitely not welcome. In the wet we knew that a substantial part of the advantage the Rotax Max had over the Prokarts would be lost. We just wouldn't be able to use the power and we had a handicap of thirteen laps to make up.
But wet was what the weather forecaster had said and for once he was spot on as the team crocodile turned up at the circuit - Jason Redding who was driving with us on this occasion, turning up at exactly the same time.
It looked as if we could be on wets for the whole race so we had a quick change of mind on tyres deciding to run with worn Maxis in practice and then put on a new set of the same tyres for the race instead of using one set of Bridgestones throughout.
A quick look round the pits showed a wide range of different tyres in use from Bridgestone, to Continental to Vegas and Maxis, and by the end of the race this had become something of an issue, with the Vegas outperforming everything else by a wide margin. We hope that in future a single make of wet tyre will be specified - don't mind what it is as long as everybody is using it.
Thomas went out first in practice to make sure the kart basically worked and then Jason took over the driving so that he could get used to the kart. We made a couple of changes to the set up, with the help of Tim Spears who had arrived to help us in the pits, and Jason seemed happy enough with the handling.
He was certainly going well getting down into the 55sec.
James took over to do a few laps since he was due to start the race and qualified us 7th out of 25 with a rather slower time than Jason had achieved.
Having practised re-fuelling and seat changes with Tim and got a set of the Kartline slicks ready in case the track dried out (it looked as if it might do, for a short time) we were ready for the start.
James managed to get off the start line without hitting anybody else and may even have made up a couple of places going down the inside of the first corner.
Settling down a bit he got down into the 55secs lap but had a bit of a problem staying ahead of Team Alpha. They were running on Vegas and were quicker through the corners, but then our Rotax was much faster on the straights.
Eventually they went away helped by James going off briefly on two occasions at Christmas at the end of the back straight.
He also found to his cost that the Prokarts he was now lapping were fiercely competitive (to put it politely) in the corners and he got booted off into a spin at Inkermans.
Lap times weren't improving much and James was struggling a bit with the handling. By about lap 31 there was something definitely wrong though he went on for a few more laps before the handling got so bad that he signalled to come in.
As he did so it became obvious the trouble was a deflating front right tyre but he got back to the pits OK.
We changed the wheel, re-fuelled and put Jason in the Kart without loosing too much time.
Jason was going well and looking controlled and very competitive against most of the competition apart from Ben Cruttenden driving for Rogue Racing (with Vega tyres) who seemed to be in a different league.
Tim and the rest of the pit crew were just beginning to relax (if that's possible while standing by the pit rail in heavy rain) when Jason disappeared off the track at Inkermans and got out of the kart.
We got the trolley round there to find that the back axle had sheared off, so it was back to the pits to put on a replacement.
Led by Thomas we did a pretty good job, struggling first with getting the old one off because the broken end wouldn't go through the bearings and then with getting the replacement one on.
We got Jason out again in a bit under 73 minutes but with our hopes for the race pretty much shot to pieces.
But the kart was going well and Jason's time were coming down into the 54secs where they stayed consistently.
On lap 96 he got our fastest lap of the race at 53.93 but then shortly afterwards had a spin and had difficulty finding his previous form - probably because it was now raining harder again.
We brought him in after 45 minutes to change to Thomas, the idea being that he would do a good hour and James would take over for the final 20 - 25 minutes.
The rain was heavier now and great roosters of spray were coming off his back wheels as he passed the pits. He was also having trouble with his visor misting up, quite apart from the spray coming off the karts in front as he overtook them. Why is it that more spray seems to come off the Prokarts than other karts? Perhaps there are just more Prokarts........
He had one spin in these treacherous conditions but otherwise it looked as if he had things well under control.
We were in 21st position now - and had been for some time - with 20th too far ahead to be caught.
We left him out there for just over 62 minutes and then brought him in for re-fuelling and change to James, with a pit stop that was only a couple of seconds slower than the previous one.
James now had just about 20 minutes to go before the end of the race and in this session he was certainly getting a better grip on the handling than he had at the start.
But nothing he did was going to make any difference to the finishing position and it ended with us in 21st place - not last and given the problems we had - not bad!
We are very grateful to both Tim for helping us out in the pits and to Jason for driving for us and hope they will both join us again at some time in the future. Meanwhile here are the results and if you want a less biased view of the race proceedings go to the OEKC site for their account of the race.
Finally there are photographs taken by Gary Chandler.
R e d S t r i p e R a c i n g