Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th of May was the weekend of the 3rd round of the Easykart UK Championship, held this year at Shenington Kart Track. Last year this was the highlight of my season as I got my highest finish of 10th and managed to drive well in tricky conditions. This year I was and still am hoping for better, which shouldn't be too difficult with a much smaller Junior grid, only 16 at Shenington.
Mitchell suddenly realised he had been overtaken.
Slipping up the inside of Mitchell into Wilkins
I'm starting 6th!!
Ritually cleaning the kart after each session
As Shenington is a local track for us we aren't staying in a premier inn. The journey took us about 1 hour 15 minutes from home to the track. We were sharing an awning with Jacob Wardle, dubbed by my dad as our "Junior Driver" (we wish), and his dad. We arrived at about 8:30 and were set up by 9:00. We signed on and I went for a track walk simply to set my watch up and check the track conditions. Jacob had arrived by 9:00 and they were set up pretty quickly as well.
For the first time in ages we managed to make it out for the first session on time, and without a breakdown part way through! My lines however, were atrocious and I don't think I hit any of my apexes. The day steadily got better and better, not necessarily my times but my line was getting better. All I had to do was brake later and get the power down earlier. I think my mychron may be slightly out on its timings as on Sunday it was giving me times half a second slower than I was actually going, and this was on two mag strip settings but Shenny has 3 mag strips. My fastest of the day was a 44.2 I think but with my mychron it may have been a 43.7.
Sunday looked daunting as the weather forecast was showing lots of rain, we were just hoping that it would hold off long enough for us to have a dry final. We arrived in the dry and the awning was still up. As Jacob isn't racing in Easykart this year he packed up and went home on the Saturday. Mitchell was without an awning and knowing the weather forecast we let them use half of ours. It is definitely much better having another person in the awning on race weekends.
Grid for the Heat
Warm up was good and with these new tyres dad just said "Drive like it is a normal session" and it worked, it scrubbed the tyres in nicely and as it was only a 5 minute session didn't take them over the top, after 2 easy bedding in laps I was attempting to get my line better.
Qualifying was amazing! There was a 3 way fight between Me, Mitchell White and Dan Walden which, I know, isn't the best for a qualifying session but I kept easing up and allowing them to go past so they could get a clean lap, and for me to then be able to catch up. I am told that I was in 10th or 11th place with only a few more laps remaining, when I suddenly jumped up to 6th position and stayed there. This was, and is, my highest qualifying position to date in Easykart.
The heat went well with me keeping my position throughout the race and finishing in 6th position, nothing amazing happened that I saw and I did no good overtaking. So nothing of merit there except that I held my position.
The Pre-final went.... ok. I was starting in 6th and got a really good start, keeping with the 5 in front of me and pulling away from whoever was behind me. But it was apparently a false start caused by none other than Mitchell White. This starts my downward spiral as from the start I dropped a couple of places down to 9th and had to fight the whole race to get back up. I managed to finish in 7th and was gaining on 6th, but I just wasn't close enough.
Close battling between us
Me trying to hold off Jenson Murchison in the Heat
The final is a tale of two halves. The start was appalling and I dropped right down the order to 10th because I was stuck on the outside around cafe, and everyone else was so close together that I just couldn't get in. I held my position for a lap until we got to Cafe again where I was spun around by another driver,taking us both out and into last. Completely a racing incident. I was enraged that it had happened but looking back there was nothing I could have done to stop it. Down in 15th place is not a nice place to be when you've been running relatively close to the front all day. Not only was I right at the back but I was now half a lap behind. The next 18 laps were a blur as I did lap after lap consitently in the low 44 second area. I only made 1 mistake and that was taking cafe slightly wide, but it gave me a better line out and I wasn't under attack from anyone. I made my way back up to 10th and was closing in on Matas and Dan Walden as the final lap board came out, had I had 4 more laps at most I am almost certain I would have got past Dan, and maybe even Matas. Also a congratulations is in order for James White - First clean sweep of the Easykart UK Junior Championship 2014.
Not the greatest day for championship points, but a great one for showing my determination and accuracy with the kart. Sorry about the lack of preview for Shenny, I will try and get a post race preview (if that makes sense) up before long. Don't forget to check out my youtube channel for all the videos from test days.
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