Glan-y-Gors 2014 | Easykart UK Round 5

On 19th/20th July it was the 5th round of the Easykart UK Championship. It was held at Glan-y-Gors park in north Wales. Glan-y-Gors is one of my favourite tracks as it is very fast and has some good flowing corners.

We left for the track at about 5:45am on Saturday. We arrived after a 3 hour journey in the pouring rain and had to get set up. Luckily the awning was easy to get at so we stayed relatively dry. The track was soaking wet so re-learning the track was slightly more difficult than normal, but it was a laugh as you were able to slide around most of the corners without spinning off the track. I made it out for 2 of the 3 morning sessions as the first session was just too wet.

So much rain!

By the afternoon the rain had stopped and we were able to go out on slicks and I got out in 2 of the 3 afternoon sessions, only because we thought after the 5th session (my 4th session)  the test day had finished, which normally it would have done, so we were getting the kart ready for scrutineering. As we were walking up to sign on we noticed everyone else was on the grid...
This time we were staying in a B&B called OakField House in Betws-Y-Coed. Considering our previous experiences of B&B's haven't always been the best this place was AMAZING. If you are ever karting at G-y-G or are simply staying in Snowdonia I would completely recommend staying there. The owners are great and the rooms are really nice.

We woke up on the Sunday to bright sunshine and clear skies - things were looking up. We got to the track and had the kart set up pretty quickly. The warm up was simply a time to get the new slick tyres scrubbed in, times weren't amazing. I set a time only slightly quicker than I had on the saturday.
Qualifying was slightly better as I was sitting in 7th place for most of the session, then on my final lap I pushed myself up to 6th by a tenth, not far off 5th place.

The final

The heat was good as I managed to get a time quicker than I did in qualifying and gained a place finishing in 5th place.
Lunch came and went with the weather still looking OK, a slight rain shower made us query going to wets but the track is very abrasive - so we stuck with the slicks for the pre-final.
The pre-final was on of my best and worst races. I dropped two places at the start down to 7th with Seb Algieri getting past me which was unusual as he is normally battling with others at the back - hope to see him mixing with the mid pack a bit more this season! Unfortunately I took a stupid lunge going into the 2nd to last corner and took him out, silly move and I am grateful that Seb and "team" felt it was a racing incident and told the Official that that was their view when he came to inquire. I finished the pre-final in 5th place and was the 3rd fastest person on track.

Driving with badly worn tyres was difficult

Just before the final the weather took a turn for the worst. It started chucking it down with rain. We only just had enough time to change the tyres over so no rain suit for me - I got drenched. The worst thing about the rain was that it was cold so keeping concentration was difficult, also the fact that when you were behind someone you couldn't see a thing. We had Buckmore tyres on and although they allowed me to be quick at the start, they completely died at the end. Lesson learnt.

Looking forward to Llandow next and should get some video footage up soon.