The sun shines at Whilton Mill – 23/24 May

Top novice trophy

Its been a long wait since our last race weekend as we skipped the rain soaked Shenington weekend last week and chose instead to compete at Whilton Mill in Daventry with the rest of the DPRS Team. As it turned out, we had a dry weekend and an absolutely glorious race day. Daventry felt just like Monaco!!  Well almost …

By past standards we had a relatively uneventful weekend (which is good!!) to get the third signature on Sams novice licence, despite upsetting the scrutineers on more than one occasion. Not exactly novice friendly! But the day finished on a high with another novice trophy 🙂

Saturday

With our No.1 engine not yet ready from its Rissington incident we had to run on engine No.2, which I had not used until this weekend. I dont know about Dad but I was seriously nervous about how the engine was going to perform [Have faith boy! – Dad]. Green flag comes out, engine starts (so far so good). First lap around hitting 15,000 revs, lap 2 again hitting 15,000 revs. The nerves disappear and the confidence boosts. But then lap 3 comes around and it barely hits 13,000 revs, oh dear.  After two more laps the revs get lower and lower. I wasn’t happy with it so I return to the pits thinking “this weekend could be over before it even starts.” But thats the advantage of having the magic Dave Paveley and Jason Dredge to fix things. So with a change of carburetor and spark plug we were back up and running. [ Oi!! I changed the carb – Dad ]

Sunday

With my confidence back up to 100% and my target of the day set on that novice trophy (that I was competing with Charlie for), we arrive at the circuit, prepare the kart and before I knew it, it was time for the first practice which flew by. Heats one and two were “not brilliant” should I say [ Sam actually held position but was disappointed with those results ].   Infact, scrutineering was as exciting as it got !!

Throughout the heats, Sam and Charlie were trading times and spent most of the three heats glued together again. Fastest laps were split by only 0.04 seconds in heat 1, and only 0.01 seconds in heat 2.

Sam and Charlie glued together again

Heat three soon came around and I feel that it was one of my best performances yet. Starting at the back with nothing to lose I decided to be on the right for the rolling start so that I can get the inside line up the hill. From this position I overtook Charlie and Will which put me second novice, but one corner later I gain the position of first novice. At this point I was buzzing and finished the race as top novice.

Heat 1 rolling start - Jade on pole

Jnr TKM Final

This gave me an extra confidence boost for the final, which soon came around. I started 12th on the grid as first novice. The first few laps were about defending my position but a few laps later I caught up with Jade and another blue plate who were having a bit of a battle on the outside line. I got along side them and overtook them both into the corner. Unfortunately the other blue plate got back past me later but I still finished 7th – my best result out of the three races I have done so far.

What a great weekend and a new PB of 50.37 seconds.

Full results and times on karting.co.uk

Next stop Rissington in June for the penultimate race as a novice.