July 12, 2005

The 2005 Season: A new Kart!

Well the old Wright R2 has been sold on Ebay :) and this Saturday we are picking up a brand new MS kart from Howard at the track. Not only that but we are also being given 2 RPM tuned motors to try out so watch this space for some fastest laps :)

Serously with all our bad luck probably a wheel will fall off the new kart!

Mark.

Posted by Mark at 12:39 PM | Comments (0) | The 2005 Season | TrackBack

June 27, 2005

The 2005 Season: Disaster. Again! :(

Well we waited all year for the round at Buckmore Park and so were suitably excited on the drive down to the kent cicuit. The weather had threatened rain but it held off for Saturday practice. All was going very well indeed with us only 2 tenths off the super pro teams times at around 46.751 secs a lap.

About 3 hours into practice with Nick out in the kart he suddenly decided to pit. We ran over with him pointing to the steering and when I got over yep sure as eggs is eggs the right hand stub had split at the weld on the chassis! Remember the left hand one went when we were in the lead at Sandown 2 months ago. To say my heart dropped is an understatement as I knew our weekend was over!

We got the kart back to the pits and the red mist came down over my eyes! I picked up my lump hammer and yes your very own calm spiritual CEO set too on the bent stub at the front and promtly smashed the hell out of it to some very odd looking glances from other teams in the pit! There is nothing better than a bit of Lump hammer rage I can tell you :) We packed up and came home to play BF2 instead.

I am now toying with changing the chassis as the old wright R2 just does not seem up to the job. 3 other karts had the exact same problem at buckmore so definatly a design fault there. Oh well thats racing I guess. I feel like Minardi!

Mark.

Posted by Mark at 9:27 AM | Comments (0) | The 2005 Season | TrackBack

June 9, 2005

The 2005 Season: Round 4

Well I promised a race report from the weekends Race.

Turn up we did with our new sponsered livery generating no small amount of kart envy in the pits! :) Anyway we set about qualifying with avengance and managed to get quite a respectable 17th on the grid. Not too bad. It was Nicks turn to start and so we left him on the grid amongst 40 other karts to stew in his nerves :)

Race on and we seemed to be doing ok. Doing ok that is until Nick was forced to pit after running into the back of Q8 and stoving our bumper in :( A hasty repair saw us back on the track in last place and no less than 3 laps down! Nick then had to come in after 1 hour 10 mins dues to his wrist hurting so Chris took to the field with a lot of work to do. Chris in normal style carved up the field. We decided that Chris would do two stints and I would do the last one. Chris radioed he was fine at 1 hour 40 so we decided to pit him and send him out again!

I got a drink of redbull and a straw (some fuel pipe) ready for him and whilst the kart was beinbg refuled he drank the lot jumped in the kart and was off for another hour. For any of you that think you are good at karting I suggest you try doing back to back 1 hour 45 min stints in an endurance race :) Anyway after another hour we decided to pit a very tired Chris for me to bring home the chequered flag.

I took over from Chris and set about chasing places. Try as I might I could'nt close any and we finished in a very respectable 15th overall after unlapping ourselves 3 times! We seem to play catchup well. Now we just have to stay on the track in the first stint and I am sure we can win!

Posted by Mark at 12:53 PM | Comments (1) | The 2005 Season | TrackBack

June 3, 2005

The 2005 Season: The comeback!

Well we are racing this weekend and I have to say my design team have done a splendid job on the new kart livery. As you know we are updating the whole site with content and also logo etc. The kart has also gone through this process. Let's just hope the chassis does'nt break whilst I am in the lead again ehh :(

Forecast is rain too yuk :( 6 hours racing in the rain oh dear! Race report on Monday.. Tinbasher can I borrow yer donkey jacket?

Mark...

Posted by Mark at 4:04 PM | Comments (1) | The 2005 Season | TrackBack

May 16, 2005

Endurance Kart Racing: Round 3 2005: The Joy :) The pain :( and Murphys law!

What a weekend!!!!

Saturday we arrived at the circuit in high spirits with our newly tuned motors supplied by JJ (Pro-Kart Engineering) and set about setting the kart up. To say we were flying is an understatement! The Super pro teams were setting around 46.8 secs a lap and we as a clubman team were hitting 46.2 which is only 4 tenths of a second off their pace :) In real terms thats like Minardi in F1 being right up Michaels Ass! Yes we were very very pleased. Our nearest Clubman team rivals were doing around 46.9 secs. We decided to stay in Esher Saturday night and went out for a nice meal to reflect on our practise.

Race day saw Nick qualify us in 13th on the grid (our highest place to date)! Normally we are around 25th or even further back so again new territory for us to be in the top 15 at the front :) Chris was elected to start amd got our race off to a flyer. He held our position and then settled down for his stint of 1 hour 45 mins. When he pitted we were in third place Clubman and I think 11th overall. I took over and quickly settled into my rythmn. After I had been our for about 50 mins I started to here noises from the front spoiler. I radioed the pit crew to possibly get one ready in case I needed to come into the pits to change it in a hurry! The kart was also becoming increasingly difficult to get round left hand corners. Lap after lap this got worse until karts I had passed easily were now overtaking me. I decided to pit and came in where to our horror we saw that the left hand chassis bracket had snapped and was bent up :(

That's it game over as we cant weld it back at the track. I dont think I have ever felt so dissapointed and I know the team were suicidal! So we packed up and came home early with us all reflecting on why Murphys law seems to apply to us all the time!

What did we learn?

1. If you add the word Endurance to any sport you have many tears. Some of pain and some of joy.

2. We have worked hard for a year and a half and now feel we are on the pace, which is an achievment in itself

3. Endurance karting is very hard to be consistently good at! Try it!

4. We will be back at Milton Keynes for round 4 in 3 weeks time as I NEVER give up :)

Mark...

Posted by Mark at 9:09 AM | Comments (0) | The 2005 Season | TrackBack

April 21, 2005

Endurance Kart Racing: Round 2 2005

Now I have recovered from my battering at the weekend I thought I would pen the results here :) Sunday saw a clear sky after what was possibly a rain forcast (They never get it right do they) The wets we bought stayed stacked in the corner and we set about qualifying on new slicks.

We decided again that Chris would qualify for us and he managed to get us a very respectable 22 on the grid out of 40. I was elected to start the race and got myself ready. After Johns spin at the last round all I could think was don't spin on the warm up lap! So I didnt I got shunted off on the third lap and went from 22nd place to 40th instead :( pants!!!

With the bit firmly between my teeth I set about making up the lost places during my stint. Its awfull being at the back of field after a spin so I was determined to make it up. By the time I came in after 1 hour 30 mins I had managed to get us back to 25th place so not to bad I guess. Anyway Chris took over and set about the field in his normal agressive style. We then realised that the racing was very tight with no less than 18 karts on the same lap. Pit stops would be crucial if we were to make gains today. Chris came in and after a seamless pit and fuel stop John went out. During Johns stint we moved into 6th place in clubman and he managed to hold this place for Nick to take over the final hour and a half drive.

The last hour proved very exciting with only 30 seconds seperating the top 6 teams in clubman. Our nemesis, team 48 who were standing in our awning at the time were about 20 seconds ahead of us in position 5. With only 4 mins to go their driver did'nt appear up the long straight after having a front stub axle sheer off! You can imagine the banter in the awning :) This moved us to 5th place which is our highest finish to date. Roll on round 3 in 4 weeks time.

Mark...

Posted by Mark at 9:08 AM | Comments (2) | The 2005 Season | TrackBack

March 30, 2005

Endurance Kart Racing: Round 1 2005

Where have I been? Recovering from a grueling 6 hour endurance race thats where! Man am I out of shape as are the rest of the team also.

Yes on Sunday we raced at Sandown park in round 1 of the British Endurance champs. Qualification on Sunday saw us attain 18 place on the grid out of 40 karts with only 1.5 seconds seperating the whole field. well done Nick for that 46.867 time! It was not untill my drive that I realized how much I had let myself go since last season ha ha :( Serious back ache only 20 mins into my drive with over an hour to go is not good, and with only 9 seconds on the straight in which to try to relax your muscles you dont get much of a break around SP!

We had our usual run of bad luck with a front stub axle snapping whilst Chris was on a fast bend. This saw the wheel fly into the pit area and him spin off luckily with no other kart damage. We managed to get him back in and replaced it but by the time he went back out we were 9 laps down and spent the rest of the race trying to get that back. We finally finished in 7th place in Clubman which saw us get 33 points so not a bad result all things considered. Roll on round 2 at Milton keynes in 3 weeks.

Mark...

Posted by Mark at 12:07 PM | Comments (0) | The 2005 Season | TrackBack

January 10, 2005

The 2005 UK endurance champs

We are now getting ready for the 2005 British endurance champs, and it looks like there are a few changes this year which will affect us all...

Fixed gearing at all circuits
Super pro champs, Pro Champs and Clubman categories
2 New circuits, Rye house and a round at Buckmore park too!

The team is staying the same as last year with Chris as number 1 driver. I will be driver number 2 and head mechanic :) After speaking to Paul Bowler I have been reliably informed that we will be in Clubman. We have a chance of winning this and to be honest we just dont have the experience of keeping up with the top Pro teams (you try) So I will be more than happy if we are in Clubman.

The fixed gearing will mean so much less testing for everyone so Im not arguing against that either. As usual I will be writing race reports in the Blog like last year so you can see our ups and downs as the year progresses :) lets hope we have more ups than downs!

The main championship site is over here

UK Endurance karting Champs

I have one small problem :(

This round

Round 7 Milton Keynes International 07/08/2005

is the weekend of my fast approaching wedding! Now I am known for my blagging skills, but even I doubt I can pull that one off! I think her indoors would be not best pleased If I tried to fit motor racing in on the same weekend as my wedding ha ha Still we will see. "Vicar do you have any other dates than August 6th"?

Mark...

Posted by Mark at 3:17 PM | Comments (0) | The 2005 Season | TrackBack