Winter Cup | Buckmore Park 2014 | Easykart UK

I'm not sure why this is happening but the last couple of races I really have seemed to be slacking when it comes to writing and getting this posts out. Sorry for all of you who read it, if there are any of you...

Anyway, on the weekend of the 8th - 9th November (ages ago I know) the final race of the Easykart calendar, not season, was held. This is a one off, non-championship, race known as the Winter Cup. It is generally looked forward to by most as pretty much anyone can win it. The winner gets to race with the "prestigious" Easykart e on their kart instead of a number. Unfortunately I didn't win this, so don't expect to find that at the end.

As you can see - missing the apex

We left on the Friday so that we could get a good night sleep before the weekend and, having eaten before we left, I was asleep almost as soon as we got to the room. I was exhausted. No idea why, but I was.The  aim for the weekend was, obviously, to try and win. If that wasn't possible a podium would be nice but barring that, no incidents.... (yet another) unfortunately, none of them were achieved.

Saturday, Practice day. Hoping for a dry track, at Buckmore, in late autumn was like wishing for a unicorn. Often done but not going to happen. The first 2 sessions were quite obviously going to be wets. I was setting some decent times and getting used to the track again, but it wasn't that useful. I seemed to be about on the pace.  Third practice there was a definite dry line around almost all of the track, with exception to the top 3 hairpins which were starting to dry but were still damp. I felt like I was flying around the track, missing most of my apexes but it felt great. I was really getting used to the track again and finding my lines. By the end of the 4th session I felt confident with my dry lines. The 5th session was my quickest session I think with the whole track pretty much bone dry, on the racing line at least.

Rocking that No. 8 Seeded number

Sunday, Race day. Having had a good sleep and got to the track on time, we were out for the warm up first. The track was soaked and slicks would be absolutely useless. Qualifying was fairly uneventful with me going back into my old ways of struggling for the speed.... I qualified 6th, 0.8 seconds off the guy infront. The heat was an ok race for me, I'd dropped at least 3 places off the start but had gained them all back plus one by the end of the 2nd hairpin. I was up to 4th and held my position for the rest of the race.
The Pre-final was the race where all the incidents happened. The track was close to being dry and most of the grid went out on slicks, however the top hairpin was SO damp that there was absolutely no grip. Only 7 drivers finished with 5 DNF's. I dropped down to 8th by the end of the first lap and but was up to 7th by lap 10. Unfortunately on the 11th lap I made a lunge down into the bottom/pit exit corner which didn't work, I nudged the guy in front and slowed right down, he managed to survive the impact but I didn't. Before I knew what was happening I had 2 karts hitting me from the side with one going over the top. I am so glad I was wearing my neck brace as otherwise I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have made it out for the final. My head and neck remained uninjured but the rear of the kart took a small chunk out of my finger. The rear axle was bent along with the steering column, track rod and nassau panel. Also a new steering wheel is needed as that got slightly shredded. We had about 25 minutes to effectively do a 2 hour repair. But we managed. The axle took a few hammer hits and the tracking was left unsorted (or tightened!).

Last official outing with the Koden - demoted to camera helmet now

The final. With a slightly bent rear axle and tracking that was definitely not straight I lined up on my grid spot of 8. By the end of the first corner I had made up 4 places and was in 5th, keeping up with Jenson Murchison infront of me. I finished the race in 5th place but felt happy with my driving as I had a decent gap behind me.

On later inspection the tracking had ended up toeing in a lot, almost at the edge of the sniper laser alignment thing's guide.

I should be moving up to seniors next year however, being a pygmy, I am 2-3kg below the minimum driver weight. With Easykart's recent move away from the MSA this should not be a problem as an exception clause or something should be put in to allow drivers in my position to be able to race without a stupid, and unsafe, amount of lead on their kart. Thank you Easykart UK, ACR and Club 100 for accommodating this.

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.

Shenington Testing 2014

Behind 2 drivers, closing in

Thursday 17th of April was a test day at Shenington, I went to it. I don't think there is another test day between now and the Easykart race at Shenington, so we went to simply get used to the track again, allowing us to focus on set-up during the race weekend. We arrived at just gone 9:00 expecting to start around 10:00, and the junior session did start at just after 10:00. However, as usual, we didn't get out for the first session. The gearing for shenington in an easykart was 78 teeth last season, but has been changed to 76 teeth for this season. As we hadn't got a 76 tooth sprocket we decided to put the 77 tooth one on, if only for the first session as the Spellfame shop was there.
The shop was open when we got to the track so we decided to quickly change the sprocket to the size we would be using on the race weekend. This took longer than expected so we missed the first session, but that didn't bother me.

Looking to overtake at least 1 of the trio

Having overtaken all three attempting
to pull away from Jordan Sanders

Throughout the day there were about 7 sessions for each class, each session being 8 minutes long. We put on the tyres that we had used at the e-plate, Whilton test and Buckmore practice day, so they were well worn, but still had a bit of life left in them. As was expected, in the first session, the easykarts - Jordan and myself - had the top speed over the TKM's and were about the same as the Rotax's, but the acceleration that the Rotax engines have is phenomenal. I forgot to set the mychron up for the first session so I got some 20 second laps... then set it to a pre-made Shenington and I got the same times, this didn't seem right. I checked the setting and there were no settings made for it.
Come the third session we put on the newer tyres that had only been used during the Buckmore race day - this gave me a lot more grip and I was getting times that were in the low 45 seconds, my quickest being 45.01 seconds. I gradually got quicker throughout the day finally getting a fastest time of 44.6 seconds. To put this into perspective the lap record for Easykart on the old tyres is/was 45.7 seconds, over a second SLOWER than my fastest of the day!
There are still a couple of corners that I need to work on but I feel very confident that a good finish is on the cards in 3 weeks time!

Recently I bought myself a Contour Roam2. Below is footage from the final session, more to be uploaded to both youtube and the blog soon.

Round 1 - Buckmore Park

New helmet design, new kart, new suit.

On 22nd/23rd March it was the first round of the Easykart UK championship, at Buckmore Park, as mentioned in my race preview. Not only was I looking forward to going to a new track but I was also keen to see if my new kart had given me any extra speed. We arrived at our Premier Inn on the Friday night to make sure that we were awake in the morning rather than, well, asleep.

Focused as ever

Saturday the 22nd of March was the official Easykart Practice day, and we were hoping to make some progress. However, as usual, we didn't get out for very long in the first session as we were rushing to get ready (adding fuel). I got out for about 4 laps though, which was good as it allowed me to learn the basic layout of the track, but Conways was rather slippy as it had been in the shade all morning, so couldn't dry from the previous evenings rain. Anyway that session ended with me having spun and hit the wall once, only damaging the rear bumper, and setting a very slow lap that was around the high 42 second mark. To put this into perspective the pole qualifying on Sunday was a high 39 second lap, and the conditions were pretty much the same. In the next session I was just about keeping up with Sam Faulkner for most of it - he may have been going slow, but that doesn't matter, I was keeping up with him!
The rest of the day went pretty much the same and I got a 41.3 as my fastest time. I felt OK with it but I was pretty sure that others were getting into 40 seconds.

Sunday the 23rd of March was Race day, the first one of the year. We arrived at about 8:15, set up by 8:30 and had the kart prepped by about 9:00, very efficient. Went out in the warm up aiming to just scrub my tyres in and not go to fast, when I found myself almost racing in a group of 4 people. I am unsure if they were doing the same as me or were just not getting their lines right, but I was deliberately 2 seconds off the pace.
As people who read my blog often may know, qualifying isn't one of my strong points, I think my highest qualifying from last year was about 17th, but this time it was different. I had managed to get a personal best qualifying position of 12th place with a personal best time at the track.
Thanks to my qualifying position I had a pretty good run at the first corner for the heat, but I was on the wrong side of the track. It had started to spit with rain just before we went out so some people were unsure as to which tyres to use, and some of them had to start from the back because they weren't on the grid in time. This allowed me to get up to 10th, I think, simply by having a gap in front of me. My race went pretty well and I was up to 7th when Sam Blower got past me, putting me down to 8th. We had a good battle for the rest of the race and on the final lap I overtook him by diving to the inside at Paddock. I managed to finish the heat in 7th place, my highest finish of a race and my best result for a heat.

The pre-final went OK, but it took me a while to get my line sorted. For some reason I was taking a racing line that was no-where near as quick as it was in the heat. It took me about 7  laps to get into my stride and when I did I was the 5th fastest driver out there. I finished the pre-final in 6th and, had I had 4 more laps, I could have finished 5th.
The final was where the weather turned against us; it started to snow. We went out on a brand new set of wets, but we didn't really know what pressures to run so it was a bit of guess work. I was starting on the outside in the wet, all I could think was that I was going to get binned (knocked off the track) going into the first corner. Luckily however, I didn't. I held my line and was up to 3rd after the first corner. I held 4th for most of the race, but then Mantas got past me and then I spun, putting me down to 11th. I was out of the top 10 and annoyed at myself. I was very lucky though as Jordan and Esmee, 1st and 2nd, were just behind me as I re-joined, so when I let them through I tailed them, this allowed me to fly past anybody who was moving out of their way for the blue flags. Using this tactic I got up to 7th place and stayed there.

It was a good race weekend, it proved that I was fast, I got my first top 10 finish by my own speed, not an accident (Shenington 2013). Also a congratulations is in order to Matas as he had a great drive to finish in his joint highest position of 3rd place, only his 2nd ever podium. Maybe I'll join him next time!

2014 Race Preview - Round 1, Buckmore Park

Coming up on Saturday 22nd of March and Sunday 23rd of March is the first race of the Easykart UK 2014 calendar. This race is going to be held at Buckmore Park which appears to be not only a very technical track but also quite quick, if you get the lines right. I know people will say that if you get the lines right at any track it is quick but what I mean is there are some long sweeping corners at Buckmore that can be taken close to flat out if the kart is set up properly.
Club 100 do some very good track guides for all the tracks that they visit and, as club 100 run the Easykart races, they have one for most of the tracks that we go to. The layout of the track seems to be split into two sections. The "top half" ,as I think of it, being quite tight and technical; and the "bottom half" being quite open and fast flowing, but not without some tight corners. From having a quick look at the track and watching many videos of the BUKC, Club 100 races and the odd easykart driver going around Buckmore, I feel that probably the most crucial corner of the whole track is going to be Symes Sweep as it is "a very fast, down hill right hand corner" and can sometimes be "taken flat, although a small lift may be required" as it then sets you up for Pullmans and Paddock corner. If you miss your braking spot and turning point at Pullmans it sets you up wrong for Paddock and forces you to lose speed, increasing your lap time.

note: these quotes are from the Club 100 track guide for Buckmore Park.

"Buckmore Park" courtesy of Club 100

Andy's suggested set-up for Buckmore (Junior)

Set up

• Carb seting start 45mins to 55mins low jet : main jet 83
• Exhaust flex 80mm
• Designated sprocket size: 86t recommended chain length 108L 

Dry set up

• 25mm front spacers on inside/ rear track 138 to 139.5cms 
• Tyre pressure dry range guide 9 to 12 psi. Always use the same pressure in the fronts and rears- look for a working pressure gain of 2 psi

Wet set up

• Full spacers inside front wheels - rear track 134 to 135cm
• Tyre pressures 16 psi grease, 20 psi wet and for monsoon wet 22 psi or even higher if day temp is only 1 or 2 degrees c

From my recent practice at Whilton Mill I am in high hopes for a top 10 finish at Buckmore, which would not only be a great start to a new season, new kart and new year, but it would also be my highest finish to date at an Easykart event!
There is yet another new points system for this year, probably because the system last year was not only confusing but put people lower down the grid on the back foot, as if you gained many places in the heat you would still have to start near the back. This year however you get championship points for the heat, pre-final and the final, however the points available in the heat are only half the amount that are available in each of the final and pre-final.