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| "Leaf no tyre marks" - Steve Webb 2015 |
On the weekend of the 26th-27th September the final round of the Easykart UK 2015 championship was held. This year it was combined with the e-plate, which gave a reason for everyone to go for the win. I was coming into this round comfortably in 3rd place in the championship, and knew pretty much all I had to do was finish in the top ten in each race.
We arrived late Friday evening to drop the trailer off, acting like complete yobs with music blaring out of the car. Then it was off to the premier inn for dinner and a good sleep before testing the following day.
Saturday, Practice. We got set up early (seems like a repeating pattern here) and went on a track walk. We were expecting it to be damp up at the first corner because, it being Buckmore and late September, that's the norm. However it was dry, a nice surprise I have to say.
Any way the first session felt a bit slippy as we had the tyre pressures a little too high, but after that they were pretty much as we hoped, good grip through the corners, no understeer and the only time I had oversteer was when I went a bit too quick through a corner. I set some good times on the Saturday and was feeling very confident about Sunday.
Sunday, Race Day. We arrived in plenty of time, discovered we had nothing really to do on the kart so went out to check how dry the track was. Not a damp patch in sight. JV did his usual drivers briefing and then we were ready.
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| The Koden certainly looks a bit less.... mean compared to the Bell. |
Warm up. We planned to go out in the warm up for maybe 5 laps, taking it fairly easy for the first 4 laps then doing one flying lap before coming in. Unfortunately we couldn't do that. As I tried to start my kart the end cap of the exhaust decided to evacuate the area. I didn't realise this, I just thought my kart hadn't started, so I did the normal thing and try to start it again. This was met by a unanimous response of "STOP!" from everyone else on the dummy grid. In the end I was allowed to do 1 lap just to check that the transponder was working. I couldn't hear anything for about a minute after I got into the pits as the noise from the unsilenced exhaust was deafening!
Qualifying. Having not been able to get the tyres scrubbed in I had to use the first couple of laps of qualifying to get them up to temperature. It was an uneventful qualifying for me, since I didn't know where I was after each lap. I managed to get 3rd which was good as it was on the inside for the first corner of the heat.
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| They knew I was one to watch |
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| Is this what you call "eco friendly"? |
Heat. I was hoping to have a decent race as, well, that's expected. I pulled out of the dummy grid for the rolling up lap and didn't seem to have any acceleration. I just assumed it'd sort itself out so continued with the rolling up lap. It didn't sort itself out so I had to be on high revs for the majority of the final rolling up lap (Buckmore is 1.5 laps for rolling up). Anyway I managed to get a half decent start, pulled a bit of a gap to 4th in the first couple of corners. However, as I was coming down the hill my rear axle felt like it locked up a for a split second, and my kart whipped round. There was nothing I could do and to top it off my engine stopped. Everyone flew past. I got my kart back onto the track and tried to start it. It didn't. I rolled it back into the dummy grid where it finally started, and amazingly was allowed back out on track, 1 lap behind. I was pretty annoyed with myself at this point, so finished the race in 16th, 1 lap behind everyone but with lap times pretty close to the front 2. And knowing my performance at G-y-G from the back I was fairly confident.
Pre-final. Starting 16th clearly was not ideal, but I knew I had a few overtaking spots so it wasn't too much of a problem. It was a fairly uneventful race. I made up 6 places in the first 3 laps and then had to try and close up a gap of about 3 seconds to the guys in front. I managed to make up the gap and get past before the end, putting me in 9th for the final. Up 7 places!
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| Just checking it is actually my trophy |
Final. Now this was the big one. Final race of the day, my final race in juniors and most likely my final race for an uncertain amount of time. I know, no more blog updates! How will you survive!? Anyway, back to the race. By the first corner I was up to 6th place I think, and was hot on the tail of 5th. I then made a move on the second lap and was up to 5th. My aim originally had been a podium, this then changed to top 5 after the heat, however given this amazing performance (Not vain at all) by myself I was pretty confident I could make the podium. I closed in on 4th place Toby Goodman fairly quickly, he seemed to be being held up a bit by Harry Barlow in 3rd but couldn't find a way past. I dived up the inside at one of the corners and made it stick without losing too much time to Harry. I caught up and was right on his tail as we approached the lower end of the track. I knew I could overtake down there in a few places and did. Up to 3rd, within touching distance (again) of the third step of the podium. I held 3rd for a few laps before Barlow found some speed and managed to get back past, giving the push signal. Normally this would annoy me but I could see that we still had about 6 minutes of the race left so I let it go and stuck to his rear bumper for a few laps. I could see we weren't making any ground on the leading duo so made a move down the bottom again to put myself into 3rd. This caused a little bit of jostling and dropped the group behind me back a bit. Having a decent gap was good as it allowed me to just think about my driving. With clear air my times started to improve, and I began closing in on Jenson ahead. I didn't think I had enough time left to catch him but kept pushing just in case he made a mistake that I could capitalise on. Unfortunately he didn't, but I held 3rd place so I was happy. Since this was also the E-plate I got a second trophy for getting 3rd in that! (Its the shiny gold one in the picture!)
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| I look like I'm going to fall off.... |
A good end to a surprising season. Very happy with 3rd overall in the championship, collecting a couple of trophies along the way as well as technically a race win. No pole position from qualifying but you can't have everything. What I'll be doing next year is still undecided, but I'll try and keep an eye on the championship, putting comments on here when I feel it deserves it!
