Easykart UK 2014 | Round 8 | Ellough Park

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On the weekend of the 20th - 21st September the 8th and final round of the Easykart UK championship was held this year, as last year, at Ellough Park Raceway. Although I have been doing quite well all year I wasn't particularly looking forward to this round. Ellough park has always been a difficult track in my eyes, you either really get it - or you really don't. Last year I really didn't get the track.

Friday evening - travelling. We left on the Friday evening to hopefully get down and be able to get a decent nights sleep before Saturday, and so as not to have to get up at a ridiculous time. I was shattered so got into bed as soon as we got to the Premier Inn, asleep within  a minute.

Saturday - Practice. I was optimistic about Saturday, the weather forecast looked clear and that is the best weather to learn or re-learn a track in. Breakfast was the usual bacon and mushroom scenario in one of my favourite 'restaurants' - The Fox Burrow Beefeater. We arrived at the track at about 8:30 and were set up pretty quickly. I went for a track walk, expecting the track to be greasy as there was a lot of mist in the air, but it wasn't, it was bone dry. I went out in the first session taking it quite easy, trying to learn the track again. The second session I really started to go for it and went about 2 seconds quicker, still not braking as hard as I could, but the kart felt good, so I was happy. Throughout the day I got quicker and quicker, getting down to a 45.00 second lap but still half a second off the overall pace. We got back to the Fox Burrow to have dinner. We went back to the room to watch the highlights of the Formula 1 qualifying - Motorsport all weekend.

I'm too quick even for the camera.

Sunday - Race. I went out in the warm up trying to scrub in my tyres but not destroy them, as expected.
Qualifying. Having had an OK day on Saturday, I was hoping for 7th at best out of the 14 drivers. To my surprise I came into the pits after the session to see my dad signalling 4th to me. I was amazed as, although it meant I'd be on the outside of the track for the first corner, it meant I had achieved more than I'd expected.
The Heat. I wasn't looking forward to the heat as on my inside I had some very fast people. By the first corner I was down to 5th place, however there was an incident at the next corner, pushing me back up to 4th place. The race was pretty uneventful for me after the first lap, having made a mistake and dropping a place to Mitchell White, I was chasing him all race but unable to overtake. Starting the pre-final in 5th could've been a good thing or a bad thing.
The Pre-Final. I held my position off the start and was keeping pace with Mitchell, unfortunately I couldn't find a way past so was stuck in 5th. Jonathan managed to get past me towards the end of the race, dropping me to 6th. Holding my position I managed to finish 6th.

Flying along the pit straight

The Final. Having not liked the setup  had for the pre-final, I changed it back to the set up we used for the heat. This turned out to be one of my best decisions of the year. I was able to make up a place on the first corner and just about kept pace with the front group. Although I was a few kart lengths back I was not dropping back. I was in 5th for most of the race until Esmee started dropping back as her neck was hurting - it was injured in an earlier collision. I made it past Esmee an up to 4th before the end of the race giving me my highest finish of the year. A good way to end a rollercoaster of a season.
Looking forward to next season, hoping I can stay in Juniors as 28+ kg of lead on a senior kart is just ridiculous.

Next stop - the E-plate.