Bayford Meadows November 12th 2006
Round 1 Club 125 Winter Challenge
Our last race had been in August and we hadn't been to Bayford since this time in 2005, so we didn't have any very great expectations as we arrived at 8 o'clock on a dry and not specially cold morning.
New tyres were put on and excess lead taken off to meet the lighter regulation weight for the Club 125 series. Then fuel in the tank, ready for practice.................only to see it coming straight out again from a split at the fixing point. So on with a brand new tank and we were still just in time for the start of practice.
Thomas went out only to come to a spluttering stop after a few hundred yards.
Somehow the carburettor had flooded itself and deposited a whole load of fuel in the air filter - or via versa; neither seemed terribly likely. We changed the carburettor and air filter and Thomas was off again.
With the kart now working, James went out to get the tyre pressures right and to see what difference increasing the ride height had made.
The kart seemed OK though the engine seemed to be hitting a wall three quarters of the way down the main straight and the chassis was hopping a bit on some of the corners.
We found later, after the race, that the exhaust baffles were beginning to break up, so that could certainly have affected the engine performance.
But there was very little time left to make any further changes and we qualified in 47.903 for 13th place on James' penultimate lap. On that basis we decided to stick with what we had for the race, which James was going to start.
After a two lap warm up, once our recalcitrant engine had decided that after all it would fire up, James made a reasonable start staying out of trouble as instructed and making up a couple of places on the first lap.
By lap four he had got into 10th and then 9th just a few laps later. On lap 15 he got his best lap of the race at 47.960 which coincided with a drop down the order as Personal Funding and Custom Made Windows came past.
There followed a long battle with Custom Made Windows. James re-took them on lap 27 only to loose the place to them on lap 34 and ten re-take it again two laps later.
This time the move stuck and we kept 10th place until our Chief Mechanic for the day - Simon Blease - flagged him in after 40mins on lap 52.
We had an excellent pit stop which went very smoothly in a time of 106.132.
This dropped us to 12th, but we were one of the earliest stoppers so we expected to make up some places as other teams re-fuelled.
By lap 68 we were back up to 10th and Thomas was getting quicker and quicker. On lap 73 he dipped below the 48sec mark for the first time and then got our best lap of the race with a time of 47.599
This took us to 8th place as Special Racing Projects who had been nursing a leaking radiator throughout the race finally had to give up and drop out.
We were now chasing for 7th place with RKC 2 directly in front but up to now Thomas hadn't made much impression on their lead.
However, either the track was getting faster or Thomas was driving better, but in any case his lap times were coming down to stick consistently in the 47s.
And gradually Thomas caught and in the event passed and drew away from RKC relatively easily with about 10 minutes of the race left.
Now Personal Funding were just a few seconds in front, but despite Thomas' best efforts there just wasn't enough time to get us into 6th - just a few more laps would have done it.
So we finished in 7th - 1.77sec behind Personal Funding - and happy that we hadn't had any crashes, stoppages or disasters and that we had finished up in a perfectly respectable finishing position.
Both drivers were dead on the weight limit - James perhaps half a kilo over - so we were a bit lucky there. Normally we don't run anything like that close.
Race results are here. Many thanks to Simon for wheeling the Ducati out of the garage to come and help us again.
The next race will be back to a four and a half hour bash at Whilton, so we hope this race will have prepared us well for it.
R e d S t r i p e R a c i n g