Weather was kind to us over the weekend with sunshine and clouds throughout and plenty of wind, but thankfully no rain. We’ve had a day in the rain before so Sam is familiar with it but life is tough enough with this only our second full race weekend so we could do without the added stress of a wet rolling start. The Driver may be OK with it but the mechanic has no finger nails left! Saturday was our first day with the new Mychron timing clock mounted on the kart so we can monitor revs and lap times and it worked first time out – I must be getting better at this mechanic’ing game.

Box of bits formerly known as an engine

After the first session on Saturday morning we started to have some strange behaviour from the engine. Hard to put a finger on it but something didn’t feel right. Not pulling the same revs as last session, hesitating out of corners, stalling in the pits, slower lap times. We’d fitted a new fuel tank overflow that day and wondered if we had created a fuel vacuum in the process, apparently you have to drill a small hole in the lid – stupid design :-0 But that was a red herring. Through the day things deteriorated further until Sam stopped out on the circuit (another new experience) in the penultimate session. The engine restarted in park ferme but it wasn’t running happy. We changed the plug and cleaned the carbin time to join the last session. But only 2 laps in the rear wheels momentarily locked and the engine died. This time it wouldn’t start. Jason interrogated the barrel with his spyglass and found bits of metal floating around in places they shouldn’t be! Head off – piston ring broken. Game over. 😦 Following our team-mate Charlie’s similar bad luck earlier in the day, we now had 2 boxes of bits under the awning that had previously been engines.

Sunday

We were a bit subdued on Sunday morning as we didn’t know what to expect after the previous days expiry of the engine. Jason had a chance to strip the engine down further last night but nothing could be done in time for the race. Fortunately, our team mate Jade was running in her new brand Tony kart chassis (lucky girl!) so Jades old kart – the Team ‘spare’ – was called into action. But this kart had not been running well at all for the last 2 events and was virtually a new kart itself in an attempt to isolate the running problems. Well we must have had all our bad luck yesterday, because the engine and chassis on our ‘spare’ ran like a dream all day. Our biggest worry was that unlike our clutched engine, the ‘spare’ was direct drive and needed a push start. Sam had no experience of starting a DD engine, nor had I as a pusher. Worse still, I’ve seen too many unfortunate Dads rub their faces into the tarmac so I was not keen to try it! So a quick Team reshuffle was called for – Team boss Dave Paveley ran Sam for the day (and pushed solo) while I helped Charlie’s dad push their kart running another borrowed DD engine.

"I have a cunning plan....."

To cut a long story short, kart and driver ran like a dream. Only problem was Sam complaining about the “Girlracer” livery in bright pink emblazoned all over the pods! Felt tip pen to the rescue 😉 Sam and Dave plotted and strategised throughout Sunday qualifying heats resulting in an impressive 11th on the grid for the final. Keeping his nose clean was the order of the day and after circulating through the final, regularly clocking up personal best times, Sam finished a creditable 9th out of 28 starters. Albeit with his pal Matt hot on his heels right to the finish line. Result – top Novice and a trophy to take home. An amazing result! See our results page for more stats on the days heats.

So to finish the weekend on such a high was tremendous after such a bad Saturday. The poorly engine is being rebuilt by Paul Carr Racing and all we can do is clean and polish what’s left of our kart!! Engine should be back in time for Whilton Mill in a couple of weeks. Can’t wait …….