June 15, 2004

Pro Kart Endurance Champs June 2004 (12 hour)

Milton Keynes R4 12 Hour!

Big Pants!

For this race we were not as well prepared as I or indeed we like. This was due to me having to attend a wedding on the Saturday and also being a driver short too. We are learning fast and each time we make an improvement though. We have managed to finish all rounds which I guess for a new team is not to bad. I think we expect to much from ourselves though to be honest! Still its all learning.

Qualifying

Qualifying was performed on the Saturday night and with some mega help from Pete again, the lads between them managed to get the chassis nicely setup. I think we qualified in or around the 25th mark (our highest yet) But we still all feel we can do so much better. I know we can. I wish I had been there.

Race day

Race day came and I look out the window to see sun and more sun (again). It going to be a hot one. We arrive at the track early because I want to do some pre-kart prep before the race. As such we didn't have time to do a proper weigh in which would haunt us later in the day :( well me anyway! I checked everything over and was happy with the state of the kart. So Chris off to the grid as he has been elected to do the start for the first time. So there we are. All formed up on the grid and nice and relaxed. Gentlemen start your engines. Pull and ping the handle comes off the right hand motor and it fails to start! knot to small in the pull start rope me-thinks! Talk about stress. I just looked at the rope as it disappeared inside the casing and could of cried! FRANTIC activity saw us join at the back of the field (just) Someone gave us a spare pull starter. I don't know who it was or even if they got it back? I love the helpful spirit in this series.

Race

Race on then and Chris joins the back of the field. A mega first stint from Chris saw us clime to 20th place overall woot. Chris is at the moment our strongest driver and put in a great performance. He comes in the pits and its me out. I managed to get on pace and was doing steady low 1.11's most of my stint which is about 1.3 seconds off the pace of the top teams so we still have some speed to find. Most of which we feel is the engines to be honest. This is being remedied for round 5 :) As we are fed up catching people and then not being able to get past :( So im back in and Adam goes out with a badly bruised rib from Saturday practice. He lasts about 45 mins and then comes in unable to carry on :( This means we now have only three drivers and still 8 HOURS to go! Nick out and does us proud with a very steady drive keeping us in 8th place I think in clubman.

7 hours of running and with 5 to go and its my second drive. Chris had done a 3 HOUR stint before mine and was suitably fucked to be honest! A great drive for him though with a splash and dash of fuel in between. He comes in and I go out again. About half way through my stint I get a bad shunt just before the pit straight and this knocks off one of our fuel pumps that was mounted on a pathetic bracket to be honest (this will be changed). Down to one engine I crawl to the pits for a hasty repair. It also un-coupled my radio and then the end of the lead dragged along the track and broke it :( The pit stop involved me getting out and getting my hands dirty as I am head mechanic (Hot stress with sweat thrown in) then getting back in to finish my stint!

Fix it and back in to settle down again. Another 30 mins and a chain throws. The chain was probably a consequence of the shunt with delay thrown in. Oh pooo crawl to the pits for another me out and get my hands dirty again :( back out again (getting used to this now) and then settle back down. Hurray my stint is finally over and I come back in only to be told im under weight. I had forgot to put my one weight on which cost us 10 laps and dropped us to 15th in clubman! This is the consequence of not doing a weigh in in the morning. I made an entry in my diary about this later on, it simply said Bugger!

So Nick out for our last stint of a very very long day. A good drive again from him saw us coming home in 14th and 25th overall. We all felt that we had grafted our hearts out and the result didn't reflect this. I still feel like ive been beaten up. Still a 6 hour will be a doddle now and at the next round we are going to try even harder to get into the top ten in clubman. With our new tuned motors this should be possible (we hope) The kart apart from the silly problems performed very well and does handle nice although lacks speed still!

Roll on round 5..

Mark...

Posted by Mark at June 15, 2004 3:06 PM

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