Screw Loose | Easykart UK 2015 Round 4 Clay Pigeon

Nice and dry on Saturday

The 4th round of the Easykart UK championship was held over June 27th-28th at Clay Pigeon Raceway. Last year Clay Pigeon wasn't a great race for me, having struggled with tyres all weekend. This year I was hoping for better.
We arrived at the track on Friday to drop off the trailer, it was so misty/foggy that at the track you couldn't even see 20m in front of you! We then headed onto our hotel. Not much to say about Friday other than it was a good nights sleep.
Saturday, Testing. We arrived at the track to beautiful sunshine, a complete contrast to Friday Evening. We were set-up and signed on ready for the "official" Easykart Track Walk. Although I have been to Clay Pigeon multiple times the official track walk is always useful, sometimes showing me where I can gain time. The day went well, I seemed to have the pace and we were pretty confident on setup. We then went back to the hotel for dinner - steak as usual.

Qualy

Sunday, Race Day. We arrived at the track, and although it was damp it appeared to be drying. However just before the first warm up session the heavens opened and the track was soaked. I was fastest in warm up by 0.3 seconds, but that's warm up so not sure how much people were pushing.
Qualifying was good, I found grip and managed to put myself P2 on the grid for the 3rd time this season.

On the grid for the heat

The heat was good, I had a blistering start and managed to get into first by the end of the first corner. There's so much more grip on the outside! Anyway, I had a decent lead of about 1 second then my tyres started to struggle for grip. I had to change my line to try and find grip, however that didn't work out too great. I dropped down to 3rd after 2 laps of struggling for grip and held my position. Then, some laps later, Jenson's wheel flew off in front of me, promoting me to 2nd place. I finished the race on the road in 2nd, however after penalties I was promoted another place to 1st. I technically won the race!!!
Pre-final. The track had now dried off and me having to start from pole was rather daunting. I made a real hash of the start, losing 2 places by the end of turn 1. The rest of the race was OK, I got back up into 2nd for a bit but then Jenson appeared and I was back down to 3rd. I tried a different line near the end of the race, hoping to gain a bit of time, but it didn't work. I finished in 4th place.

Leading the heat - 2/3 laps in

Pole Position!

Now the final.... Oh the final..... what a great time for something to go wrong! As you can tell, something did go wrong. I had no acceleration or top end and struggled for the whole race. People were able to fly past me on the straight and also pull a gap out of every corner. It was so frustrating! How I managed to finish 8th I don't know, it was a real struggle. So that ended my weekend. It looked promising a lost screw stopped my podium chances. The loose screw was the one that holds the high jet in, having lost this my kart was seriously down on power.
Problems aside - on to G-y-G!