Now we're cooking

Me getting my kit on before going out

Close racing by 5 drivers

The weekend of the 8th to the 9th of June was the 4th round of the Easykart calender. As Fulbeck is a local-ish track to us we decided not to stay in a hotel or a travel lodge, it did mean travelling for a bit longer each morning but at least I got my own bed. I had to be up at 6:30 both mornings to leave at 7:30. It was around a 1.5 hour journey so we were predicting an arrival time of 9:00 but we arrived at 8:45 in fact. We were set up and ready within about 20 minutes and signed on. We had time to kill before the first session so went for a track walk and just said hello to everyone we knew in general. Session one was ok and it was more for me to learn the track, but it is nice to get a quick time anyway.  However I didn't, I got a 50 or a 51 second lap which was very slow. My dad had set a target time of 48.5 seconds for the whole weekend, I only needed to beat it once and he would be happy, so long as I was close most of the rest of the time. Session two was a lot quicker, I cut about a second off my time. Every session I got quicker and my dad said to another one of the dads "No matter what I change he always goes quicker" neither of us knew if they changes helped or if it was just me, I hoped it was just me but I knew that there must have been something with the kart that helped as well. By the end of the day I was down to a 49.08 second lap which was close to a 48 but not quite there.

Me and Sam ready for a bit of racing, unofficial

Sunday was race day and as I had already mention I had to get up reasonably early. We were there by 8:45 again and set up in time for drivers briefing. The last time my kart, number 17, was at this track it was owned and being driven by Adam Payne who now races in senior lights. He managed to get a 48.390 as his fastest lap.
The warm up was quite slow for me as I just wanted to scrub my tyres in. I did 4 54 second laps and just took the shine off my new tyres. Sam however didn't do that. He went full pelt and complained that he only got a 49.5 second lap. He also nearly overheated his tyres... not good.
Qualifying was my best ever I think. I qualified in 16th place out of 22, not very high up but enough. I should have dropped back a bit more than I did so as to give myself more air but I didn't.
The first heat went ok. I lost a few places off the start but managed to claw them back by the time it was the end of the race. I finished P16 but because of James Hattersley getting a time 4 hundredths faster than my fastest time he got to start ahead of me, we were on equal qualifying points.
The pre-final went well. I was starting in P17 and by the end I was in P14, not the best but it was up and I got to do some overtaking which is always a good skill to have and learn.

Our Set-up

The final was the big race, well for me anyway. I had seen Jacob, a Whilton Mill Juniors driver finish 3rd in his race after having to fight from the back after he 'over cooked' a corner. My kart didn't want to start and I had a lo of catching up to do. I needed to thread my way back up to 14th before the lights but as usual some people felt the need to drive almost in the middle of the track. I made it to 16th place which wasn't too bad but I keep imagining where I would have finished had I started 14th. I think I managed to make up 6 places off the start and was up into 10th. However we had decided to bring down the tyre pressures from 13 to 12.5 psi to try and give me just that little bit more grip. It was a bad idea. I was still racing in 10th when my tyres suddenly lost grip and started drifting massively around one of the corners. My rear wheels were on the grass but I managed to hold it. I lost two places in the process but at least my tyres were sufficiently cooled to allow them to work again. I managed to hold people off for the remainder of the race. Defending every corner for the last two laps. I managed an all time best in the dry of 12th and my best by my own skill not by luck with someone spinning out.
 Next stop Llandow. Also live updates on my twitter @EGoesKarting and also on my blog if you are on a computer.