Whilton Mill, Testing and Racing

On Wednesday 30th October I had a test day at Whilton Mill. Mainly because I hadn't been in the kart since Ellough Park in September and also because the E-Plate at Whilton Mill was coming up soon. We arrived early so as to get a spot. It was half term so we were expecting lots of people to turn up. When we arrived there were a few people there,but it was going to be seniors and juniors going out for 40 mins I think, and cadets for 20mins on each hour. But as more and more people arrived, and it getting closer and closer to the start time, our time on track went down to 20 mins only junior sessions. Then it was split into 2 junior sessions 15 minutes long each. There were a few other Easykarters there, Mitchell White and a few others, (Sorry if I forgot you), and Sam Nicholas who used to be in easykart, but not any more. It was quite a quick day and I started out getting really slow times, 49 seconds at least. Then my Grandad, uncle and cousin turned up and I got slightly faster. By the end of the day I got my fastest time down to 48.43 seconds, a personal best but not that quick.

The weekend of the 9th-10th of November was the one off race done by Easykart called the "E-Plate". If you win this instead of having your typical number during the season you have the letter e. I went to this hoping to win, but thinking to myself that I would be very happy with a finish in the top half. This didn't happen.
9th November, Test day. It started off looking like a good day, I woke up on time. But then I looked out of my window and saw that it was raining. Not good. I like the rain, my best result was in the rain but we can never seem to get the setup right for the wet. So if anybody sees me when it is wet... I'm all open for tips. We got to the track and we seemed to be ahead of the rain, so we got the awning set up as quickly as possible. The tyres that we had on were the ones that we destroyed at Ellough Park, the wet ones, and they were great to start with as it was simply greasy. In greasy conditions we had more surface area than wets but still the tread to remove any water. So I was flying around quicker, or as quick as most. But come the second session and those tyres were useless. My Grandparents were staying over the Friday night so on the Saturday my Grandad came to watch, again. I wasn't doing very well as the tyres had NO front grip. I struggled throughout the day and, by the end, just started trying to slide the kart about as setup and speed was not possible. Also Sunday was forecast to be dry.

10th November, Race day. My Grandparents went home in the morning so only my dad and I were at the track in the morning, my mum arrived later on in the day. The track was still damp so for the warm up I went out on wets, yes the really bad ones. I was slipping and sliding around so it was more of a "have fun" session rather than a simply heat up the tyres and come in.
The really interesting part was qualifying, as the track was still wet but slowly drying. Being the daredevil that you all know I am not I decided slicks were the way forward. I was hoping the track would get drier the longer I stayed out, it did. However I didn't take advantage of it. I was driving around wondering why I was struggling for grip even though I wasn't driving on the racing line. The reason was that the dry parts of track were neither on the racing line nor the wet. It was only on my in-lap that I realised I was taking the wrong line. I was SO annoyed with myself. I was starting 17th out of 19 and just hoping to be able to make some places up. To my amazement I was able to keep up with the likes of Oakley Smith and Esmee Hawkey. In the end I finished 10th, but would have to start the pre-final in 15th because of my bad qualifying.
The pre-final was going well and I had made my way up to 13th place when my side started to hurt. Everytime I went round a corner I would be in agony but I felt sure I could last to the end. I think it was around lap 10 that I started to feel pain, and I came in 3 laps later. 2 laps from the end! I was 2nd last so would have to start 18th for the final, a good finish looked almost out of the question, but I wasn't going to give up.
The final was sort of in 2 parts, the unofficial start in which I got up to 9th place in 2 laps before a red flag, and the official start that I didn't even manage to start because of a badly bent sprocket. So officially I came last but had we carried on from the 1st start, rather than doing a complete restart, I would have finished easily 9th or higher.
The day was a good day as I managed to get a personal best lap-time of a 48.19 and would have had my best result to date had my sprocket not bent.... on the formation lap, I don't know how I deliberately missed every kerb. Looking forward to the new Season!!