Warden Law; May 28th; Round 5 MSA British Endurance Kart Championship.
Final position: 5th in Clubmans Class; 17th overall.
We had been planning to do a days testing, prior to this race, at PF International, but when the day came it was wet, which would have made it impossible to get consistent results, so we had to give up on that. We arrived at Warden Law therefore with no track experience since Lydd over a month previously.
So, we got to the circuit in plenty of time for a late afternoon/early evening practice session, and concentrated on learning the circuit. Ted Poole gave us the benefit of his expertise after several days testing here with the Wright R1 so we simply took his advice on kart setup and got on with the task of driving faster.
The weather was excellent - dry with patchy sun, and the circuit is a really good one, but very hard work. It's probably the most physical track we've raced on so far and both Thomas and James finished the weekend feeling pretty second-hand - Tom with bruised ribs and James with a recurrence of a non specific lurgy which has been hitting him on and off for some time.
Since Lydd back in April, the kart had had quite a lot done to it: a new back axle, modified front hubs, modified rear wheel bolts and Thruxton tuned engines so Richard who was first out, was rather disappointed to find that not much happened when he floored the throttle. He persevered for a lap before coming back in to find, with great relief that the throttle cable on one engine had not been properly connected.
After that, lap times came down steadily and the kart was feeling pretty good.
Sunday was still dry so we left the kart as it was and got on with the job of qualifying - in last place as it happens - but does it matter?
Thomas started the race, just for a change, and managed to steer round the inevitable first lap crashers, to find himself in a battle with a determined Mach 1.(Mach 1 were the winners of the hire kart class in last year's Le Mans 24hr race). For most of the session they were nose to tail and swapping positions, and at one point it looked as if the Clerk of the Course was going to get involved. The ultimate question was finally resolved however when Tom spun on the downhill hairpin which put him out of touch until Mach 1 pitted for fuel.
During the tussle Tom set our fastest lap of 62.628 - a very encouraging time as it narrows the gap between us and the leaders to more like 1.5 seconds a lap rather than the 2/3 seconds of previous races.
James was out next, but was feeling very much out of it and although he didn't actually crash, he took to the grass on one occasion when he was concentrating too hard on not throwing up inside his helmet. Eventually his speed became embarrassing and he pitted early after about 75 minutes for Richard to take over.
It had started to spit with rain during James' session but now there was definitely some water on the circuit. Richard managed to hold it together for long enough for the rain to stop and the track quickly returned to its previous dry condition.
He completed some fast laps and he also got down into the 62 secs lap time.
After two hours, he had to come in for the mandatory 3rd fuel stop and Tom took over for the last 45 minutes.
And who did he find in front of him? Yes, it was Mach 1 again, albeit with a different driver. This time there was less of a match and Tom caught and passed him relatively easily and this time it was Mach 1 who finally spun out of contention.
Meanwhile in the pits, we were told that our transponder had gone down, together with about five others so the timekeepers would have to do a lengthy manual re-construction of the laps completed before we would know our finishing position.
It was however clear who came first, second and third - or it was until McGee were found to have broken a technical/safety rule and were demoted from first to fourth. It was a minor infringement of a minor rule, to do with how much lead you could have in one single lump on a kart. They exceeded the limit by .5kg and once somebody had pointed this out to the officials, the rules had to be applied. ARB thus acquired first for the nth year in a row, Marden came second and Screamin SOCO third.
It was an good race for us and everyone except James was pleased with their growing competitiveness. This result put us 19th overall in the Championship and 3rd in the Clubman's class - but we're going to have work hard to hang onto that. Full results are on the Results Page.