My 3rd Season | 2014

Looking Back
So, my third season in Easykart has been and gone. I've had some good races this year, gaining a personal highest finish of 4th, best qualifying of 2nd. However, no podium has come my way and I am yet to get a pole position. Finishing the season with a seeded number was a bonus (#8), expected but still a good feeling. Having hoped for better at the e-plate it was somewhat disappointing not to do too well, but that's racing.
Round 1 - A new beginning again as we got the new kart. Highlight of the round has got to be getting into 3rd by the end of the first corner in the final, even if I didn't hold it. Finishing 7th wasn't bad, and was improved on later in the year.
Round 2 - Well, having not gone to round 2 I can't really say much about it other than I had a great weekend with my family instead. Thanks guys!
Round 3 - Shenington is one of my favourite tracks (I know, I say that about most of them) and, although my results there haven't been spectacular considering my form later in the season, I still regard the final as being one of my greatest races this year.
Round 4 - Clay Pigeon.... Now, being a relatively short track there shouldn't be too much time difference between the quick drivers and the "slightly slower than the quick drivers but definitely not slow" drivers. This race weekend, I feel, was my worst of the year and I hope that another one of these types of weekends doesn't turn up for a while, at least the racing side of it. Thanks to my Dad for being supportive all weekend.
Round 5 - Glan-y-Gors is another track that I have said is my favourite, but I think it is simply because it has a good flow to it, not too many park and turn corners. Not my greatest weekend but a lot of experience has been gained from it I'm certain.
Round 6 - Llandow gave me my biggest high and biggest low of the season. High - I finished 3rd in a race! Low - I was under weight so was DQ'ed from the race and lost out on 5th place in the championship. But all mistakes mean a lesson learned.
Round 7 - Whilton Mill is my most local track and I have had the majority of my track time on that track. This year saw me get my first ever front row start having achieved a Personal best qualifying position of 2nd, not yet pole. Unfortunately in 2 of the following 3 races I got taken out so was having to force my way through the pack. Thanks to the majority of the male contingent of my family for coming down, along with my Mum (Not part of the male contingent!)
Round 8 - Ellough park wasn't kind to me last year, seeing one of my worst results. This year it felt like it was going to be the same, I wasn't feeling the track as I do at other venues. It felt like I was going to have to fight for a decent finish. As it happened I didn't, setting pretty good lap times almost the same as the front group. It also saw my highest finish of 4th so I was pretty happy.
Winter Cup - A one off race with hope of a podium. This race gave me my biggest incident to date but also made me realise how much a neck brace can protect your neck in a crash.

Thanks to Club100, ACR, Spellfame, All my family, My Dad and all the guys at Easykart for being so helpful and not scared to give a tip or two on my driving.

Next year
Next year I intend to continue in Easykart and, as mentioned in one of my previous posts, I should still be competing in Juniors as I don't meet the minimum weight for Senior lightweight. I intend to be much more active on twitter over race weekends, giving updates on how it is going and lap times etc. I have 2-3kg to put on before I have to move up to seniors, so I may or may not have to move up mid season.
If possible I'd love to be able to move from Easykart into a different, more known class, however the chances of finding one of them that goes to as many tracks as Easykart (without being super1) is highly unlikely... I think.

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!