Buckmore Park: March 11th; Round I MSA British Endurance Kart Championship.
Final Position: 5th in Clubman Class; 17th overall.
We decided not to practice at the circuit on Saturday but to spend the time kitting out the new team trailer to make it more useable.
Edward was unable to race at this round due to exam commitments, so there were just three of us with Heidi as team photographer and moral support.
At 08.00hrs on Sunday the track was damp, if not wet, the weather was damp, but not raining, and cool but not cold.
The kart was scrutineered and the only failure was James' helmet which was judged to have sustained one dinge too many.
After scrutineering, a period of controlled activity as we changed tyres, moved the seat forward and loosened up the back of the chassis.
In practice, the kart behaved beautifully - a machine transformed since our only other period of wet testing at Rye House some weeks earlier.
Thomas qualified us 26th, but at the start of the race James, who was out first, due to the lending logistics of borrowing a helmet, managed to drop like a lead balloon though the grid to finish the first lap near last. But at least he stayed out of trouble.
For the next hour he enjoyed himself so much on a steadily drying track, that he managed to ignore increasingly demonstrative pit signals for him to come in for a change to slicks.
At last he came in and we re-fuelled, changed tyres and sent out Richard.
Highlights of his period at the wheel was a flattened side pod - he must have been T-boned although he denied all knowledge of the incident - and our fastest lap of the race at 48.4secs.
The track never completely dried out and soon after this it began to drizzle again. As the Management on the pit wall dithered, Richard took the decision himself and pitted for a change to wets and more fuel after an hour and a half of driving.
A quick jump up and down on the flattened pod and Tom went out - but carrying the extra weights that Richard and James needed. So he was running with a severe weight penalty.
Despite this, on a track that was once again gradually drying, Tom set some fast laps moving us well up the field. By the time the race was slowed to a crawl to enable repairs to be done to the crash barriers, Red Stripe was showing 12th on the leader board.
Tom was obviously still programmed for speed, however, and decided to liven things up by ramming the kart in front so hard that the nose cone actually split. Fortunately it stayed on, just, for the remainder of the race.
We then made a tactical error in not bringing him in during this period of slow running, but instead left him out for another half hour to give Richard a drive to the finish of just over an hour.
We had been praying for rain during the second half of Tom's drive and now with Richard out there it got seriously wet making driving very difficult with a set of very worn wets. We would have lost more time than we would have gained by changing them for new ones, but it would have made driving an awful lot easier!
Final position 17th overall and 5th in Class. It felt like a good start - apart from the start, that is.........
Memo to Ted: another new set of new bodywork required before Daytona in a couple of weeks, please.
Read the Newsletter from EKC with some of the main results.