Category Archives: Practice

Testing at Clay: didn’t we do this last year???

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Do you ever get those kart days when you just wish you hadn’t bothered? Friday was one of those. It was my fault too for cockily commenting to Junior when we arrived as to how much nicer it was now that we turned up and just drove rather than had all of the problems that we used to experience. Let’s start with the positives: we tested various setup combinations, it didn’t rain, we were pretty quick in the morning. And now the negatives: it didn’t rain enough to get any wet practice, Junior came in first session because the accelerator stuck open *and* he had no brakes (what the !?!), then there was the hissing, then Junior hurt himself driving around The Horseshoe, then hurt himself some more as we grabbed the kart as it fell off the trolley (trolley arm not done up), then he completed a full session when I noticed we had only one K-nut remaining, we got slower throughout a day which we rounded off by aborting the final session as the kart was making a ‘clanking’ noise (engine mount bolts loose, engine moved back to the stop, loose chain making noise).

As you can see, it was pretty much mostly my fault – I’ve not made stupid mistakes like this for a long time. Perhaps it was the kick up the arse I needed. When you still get chuffed that you changed a set of tyres without problem, you are still a noob! In addition to generally having a poor day, I also need to replace a Douglas M-Series Vented rim now that one of mine has worn thread holes 🙁

Cost of day: £15 petrol, £7 fuel, £35 practice fee

Costs since last post: £25 carb rebuilds, £4 nuts/bolts/washers

Total spent this year: £1,800

Testing at Llandow: Junior’s new favourite track?

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I had been trying to arrange some time to visit Nigel in the shop at Llandow so, even before our troubles last weekend, we were going to be testing there this weekend. Lucas had driven there once before – last May ahead of his ARKS test and, at that time, hadn’t really enjoyed the track; he was very inexperienced and it is a much harder track to drive well compared to Clay so I was interested to see how he fared now being considerably more ‘competent’! It was also the race weekend for Llandow Kart Club so it would give us a good measure of his pace on an unfamiliar track.

Having arrived a little late, we amassed a mighty two laps before lunchtime – missing the first session and then Junior stopping on track in the second. He said that he had just lost power and my first instinct was to check the carb. It was then that I noticed the fuel hose looked empty (a good reason why you should replace old, brown hose) and, when I blew some more fuel through, found it sprinkling out of a hole where the hose had been dragging on the track! :S The fuel hose was tied in place after that!

I had made some changes to the brakes; Junior reported my first change to have made them worse but the next tweak seemed to make the better and Junior actually said he had LOCKED HIS BRAKES!!! 🙂 The day went pretty well thereafter. We only managed four and a bit sessions because of the number of Bambinos taking part in the Llandow leg of the Bambino Kart Club Tour. I hadn’t actually realised there was such a thing at that age but it looked pretty cool – the kids do time trials rather than actually race. Anyway… we were continually changing the setup throughout the afternoon and knocked 1.3s off of our best lap to finish around 0.4s off of the pace. It was clear that Junior was something of a rolling road block at times but he was able to get a bit racey towards the end. Driver feedback was at a premium – Junior had a tendency to wander off to spend time with the other juniors, which was great for him, but it meant there was nobody to do the fuel, lift the trailer lid, help test the brakes etc and I even experienced a karting first: loneliness!!! Ok, it wasn’t as bad as that – the other Dads (whom I had got know from the last couple of rounds at Clay) are very nice but you don’t like to hang around whilst they are making setup changes on a race weekend. It’s just one of those things particular to race weekend – you are busy and aren’t too keen on giving anything away – I am the same at Clay. For the first time, I found myself phoning the wife just for a chat during a karting day!!!

In contrast to our last visit, Junior really enjoyed the track and, predictably, he wanted to come back and race on the Sunday (today), offering to fund his own entry which would have been fine had I not used said money to pay for this additional test day 😉 Having had to fund six car tyres, a service and a cam belt change in the past week, bonus kart funds were pretty thin on the ground!

So where we race next month will entirely be down to Junior. There are pro’s and con’s to both Clay and Llandow: I didn’t enjoy the last race day at Clay whatsoever, from heat one through to the final – it was the polar opposite of the March round and I felt a little let down by the officials. Then again, there is a really strong TKM community at Clay, Junior is keen to contest the entire championship, they sell ice cream and they have a tarmac road that leads all the way to the grid! Llandow, on the other hand, has an awful gravel car park that really does test your bolts on both kart and trolley. I honestly think you would need to budget to replace your trolley each year if you raced at Llandow regularly! Junior really enjoyed the variety that the track offered, however, and although he would definitely be the slowest driver there, that is not something that has ever really phased him. It would be something a leap into the deep end, as the next club round is also the Welsh Open but we’ll see what he wants to do.

Cost of day: £18 petrol, £6 bridge toll, £6 fuel for the kart, £40 practice fee

Total spent this year: £1,562

Practice 16: No more practising

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Things have changed. I know that it is too early to be saying this aloud but it really does feel like, in being so close to the pace last weekend, we’ve reached a milestone. We aren’t on the pace – that is the ultimate goal – but to have taken such a big step forward was hugely positive. I will be gutted if we don’t confirm this in the next round of the TKM Junior Championship at Clay (although all bets are off if it is wet!). My mentality has also shifted – we aren’t practising any more. We have always had to think twice about attending both days of the race weekends as we still needed the track time but now we will just be doing the race weekends.

It was Junior’s birthday recently and wanted to take his kart out so we were back at Clay for the fourth consecutive weekend! This time though we weren’t practising – we were TESTING!!! 🙂 I’d arranged to rent a Kelgate brake system from a friend in a bid to improve Junior’s braking into corners as he’d been losing a good couple of kart lengths into corners at the race weekend. To be honest, I wasn’t really in the mood for it – the 6am starts had taken their toll but the timing was right and it was his weekend after all. I didn’t set the alarm and we left when we were ready but still found ourselves at Clay by 9:10am. My mood was definitely much more relaxed – I just told him to go out and give the Kelgate a go.

Junior spun on his first corner of course! “Sorry” he said laughing as he was sat off-track just past The Kink – “I was just trying them out!”. During the morning he was getting on fine with them but I didn’t sense that he was driving any differently to how he drives with the OTK brakes. I wanted him to start pushing them to see if they made a difference – could he brake later? could he actually lock the brakes up now? I hassled him into pushing harder otherwise the day was going to pretty pointless (bar a couple of setup learnings). From there on things got a bit hairy – Junior was snaking a lot into Billies and The Hairpin and spun a few times. As the afternoon progressed, it was clear he wasn’t really enjoying himself although I couldn’t fault his perseverance. He found that, although there was much more range to the pedal, the effects were limited until a certain point, then the kart stopped hard. It was an interesting experiment although, in reality, he was never going to get it in one practice day and we weren’t ever likely to swap brake systems mid-season. We’ll focus on getting the most out the OTK brakes for now. At least the kart ran smoothly and we eeked a few final laps out of a set of slicks that settling into their new home at recycling centre by the time you read this.

Cost of day: £30 petrol, £7 fuel for the kart, £35 practice fee

Total spent this year: £988

Practice 15: Somewhat in the dark

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Last week seemed liked an ok week based on the little data we had available – we were a three or four tenths off one of the more seasoned drivers (who was on old tyres) and six or seven tenths ahead of the our good friends (and closest rivals!!!), who are looking to race for the first time this month. It was probably where I’d imagined we would be. This week the picture was much more uncertain…

The day started off with the customary dirtying of the kart en-route to Clay; despite the sun shining for most of the journey, we met a lorry on a flooded dip in the road who was kind enough to spray us and the trailer. I am definitely going to revisit the covering of the kart in transport! Unusually, despite having to turn around when I realised I had forgotten my wallet, WE WERE OUT IN THE FIRST SESSION!!! 🙂 The track started damp but it was nice and warm in the sun. The track soon dried and we were quickly into the low 37’s, two tenths off of our quickest time last week. This week was all about improving our line through Billes and I spent most of the sessions there watching Junior run wide over and over and over… It seemed as though he was braking early but not able to scrub enough speed so he’d hit the first apex but stood little chance of making the second. The carrot of not buying any chocolate from the shop until he got it right seemed to spur him on; at least he now looked like he was trying! Lo and behold, he got it right… twice in sucession! It brought a massive smile to my face and, although the session then ended, I felt we’d made a big step forward and duly coughed up some coins so that he could show me how quick he was at scoffing Smarties 😉

Stupidly, I thought that was that. I returned to the middle of the track for the next session but wandered back to Billies when he again looked a little wide from my poor vantage point. Consistency is thing we lack but I can’t hark on about it forever – he’s going to have to learn it sooner or later! At this point, our times were not improving like I had hoped – we were lapping in the mid-37s when I was hoping to push on into the 36s. Our front tyres were bald in places so we put another set of practice tyres – this found us three tenths and we were consistently lapping in the 37.1s.

At this point I decided it was time for another momentous occassion:  the testing of the CNC barrelled engine that Junior got for Christmas 😮 I was hoping it was going to be faster but nothing is guaranteed. Before that though, we had a few issues to overcome: the throttle spring hole in the barrel was much lower than on our other engine and this caused the butterfly in the carb not to close fully as the throttle stop bolt was too close. Then the exhaust needed moving. And the new engine mount took different length bolts compared to the old engine! After an hour spent mostly arsing around, the moment of truth had arrived. 1 – the engine started on the stand 🙂 2 – the engine push started as easily as our other engine 🙂 🙂 🙂 3 – it *looked* quick 🙂 But our times were the same! Junior felt the engine was quicker out of the corners but that the track was now slower. We were lapping in times very close to our friends over whom we’d had a bit in hand last week and there were no other Junior TKMs on track so nothing else to measure against. Where this leaves us with regards to the opening round of the championship next weekend, I have no idea – whether we’ll be closer than the second off the pace that we were last year, whether we’ll be quicker than the new novice, whether our CNC barrelled engine is quicker than the cast barrelled one? It would have been nice to know roughly where we were but, unfortunately, that is not the case 🙁

At least we ran all day without any problems.

Cost of day: £16 petrol, £11 fuel for the kart, £35 practice fee

Total spent this year: £804

Year 1 spend: £4,594

 

Practice 14: grub screws :(

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Our 2014 debut started in the same way as many of the 2013 days you have read about: woke up at 4am, couldn’t get back to sleep, left later than planned and the kart got soaked in the first 15 minutes of the journey from Bristol. You’d never have known it was so shiny only 24 hours earlier. I really need to sort some kind of cover out 🙁

Anyway, Clay was sunny 😮 but my wallet was lighter for paying for the engine rebuild, track loyalty card and practice day fee! We had to run the engine in – probably just as well given I had rebuilt the kart from the chassis last weekend but what should have been a straight-forward enough process proved not so. First I forgot to tighten the hose clip around the airbox. Then Junior complained the brakes weren’t working properly. It appeared there was air in the system – thanks, Sam! (you need to put some content on your homepage by the way 😉 ). Then Junior complained his brakes weren’t working (sensing a theme?) – the axle had shifted although the tape around them had saved the grub screws. I’d been wondering for a while now whether taping the grub screws was a good thing – you cannot see if and when they are loose. So I tightened them and left the tape off. Then Junior complained the brakes weren’t working – this time he was properly p*ssed because his good friend (also a novice but less experienced) had overtaken him!!! Would you believe it if I told you we had NO GRUB SCREWS!?! It seems my new grub screws had been scattered around Clay – I am fully expecting to harvest a nice crop there later in the summer 😉

So, with shop-fresh grubs screws, loctite and plastic ties, Junior managed to get his head down and drive a kart with fully functional brakes 🙂 He had also complained the kart wasn’t picking up out of the corners – replacing the carb (the one we’d run the back end of the season with and the only one not to have been rebuilt) with a fresh one cured that ail. It is good to see that Junior is starting to feel the kart and know when things are wrong – he is almost always right. We’d written off the morning but at least the ‘running in’ was done and we could see where we were. It turned out pretty well – Junior was consistent (in his missing of the apexes by about a foot in addition to his times!) but we seemed less than a second off of the pace and his lines were decent when he nailed them. Junior’s shoulder injury was ok but that also meant I didn’t get to go out on track :/

And the kart stayed dry the whole way home!

Cost of day: £16 petrol, £7 fuel for the kart, £30 practice fee, £40 loyalty card, £4 three grubs screws(!)

Total spent this year: £742

Year 1 spend: £4,594

Tomorrow, we kart – WAHOO!!!

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It’s been an up-and-down couple of days; the plan was to make our reappearance today with a quick return to the track tomorrow. I’d busted my balls getting everything ready these past few weeks and the kart looks better than it has ever done in our ownership (if I say so myself!). As I was playing 5-a-side yesterday evening, I needed the trailer packed in the morning so dragged Junior outside first thing to help lift the kart off of it’s home on top of the trailer onto the trolley so that I could get everything packed. We were ready a record 18 hours in advance of out departure (as opposed to a more typical 18 minutes after we were due to leave!). Unfortunately Junior hurt shoulder doing the lifting and declared himself unfit to kart in the evening. I was gutted! Obviously there is no point dragging him down to the track only to be heading home by 10:30am so it was just one of those things. His shoulder is improved today and so tomorrow we get to go karting for the first time in 2014 🙂 🙂 🙂

This will be the first time I have stripped and rebuilt the kart so it’s a good thing we’ll start the day running in the old engine. Fingers crossed everything stays bolted on and Junior is fit enough to get a decent number of laps in. Just as a precaution, I’ll be packing the large seat and my racewear… 😉

Race 4: another forward step

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This weekend was our final outing of the year – at the Clay Pigeon Kart Club Turkey Trot. A weekend of 6am starts for one final time this year! You know how I hate it when the kart gets soaked enroute? Let’s just say you wouldn’t know I had cleaned it the week before from the dirt it was covered in by the time I arrived at a sunny Clay.

Saturday was a really good day – we had a mixture of damp and dry tracks so a bit more much needed wet practice but, as the track got grippier in the afternoon, we looked pretty decent (especially after moving up to the gold restrictor – Junior could really feel the difference in bottom-end power). When the track was at it’s quickest, we were just over 0.5s off the pace but it was the first time Junior had been overtaken by one of the quicker drivers and then stuck with them rather than watching him sail away – he even looked like he was going to have a go back!!! 🙂 We’ve had a few false dawns so I didn’t get too excited – race day often reveals the starker truth. The kart got soaked again on the way home which meant I spent the evening drying it 🙁

I really didn’t want to hear the alarm ring but I kicked myself out of bed at the usual time. We had our clearest ever run to Clay – a grand total of 2 cars were in front of us during the entire journey. And it didn’t rain 🙂

The warm-up was good – the track was easily too wet for slicks even though there had been no rain for some time. If it’s going to be slippy, I would much rather there wasn’t a dry line so that the tyre choice is easy. For us, with used wets, we don’t have the risk of writing off a £160 set tyres so the borderline calls can sometimes play in our favour. It was only a warm-up though. Heat 1 was ok too; disappointingly there were only three of us racing – two of this season’s front runners and Junior! We were continually losing ground but only finished 15s and 10s behind over the 12 laps. Heat 2 was probably the one that was a little disappointing although it was probably my fault –  we were losing over a second a lap pretty much the whole way through although Junior’s race wasn’t helped by his fuel tank bolt falling off and then him completing the final laps holding the tank between his knees!!! I normally wrap velcro around the tank to stop if moving but, for some reason, the velcro had spent the weekend in the boot. I think the biggest problem though was me running a much higher pressure than was called for – the tyres had gained 3.5-4PSI during the race and you could see that we weren’t using as much of the tyre as we should have been. Tyre pressures are the hardest thing for me to gauge – especially in the cold/damp conditions. One to put down to experience…

The track was now dry so we switched to a full dry setup and I thought I would move down a couple of teeth just to experiment – we were going to finish last anyway so I wanted to see if Junior felt a difference. Then it rained! Although the track did dry by the time of the final, I didn’t have time to replace the sprocket so we had a lower gearing on a damp track, slicks on a wet setup. My reasoning was it wasn’t dry enough for a full dry setup but slicks were essential so I did what I thought was right. It didn’t turn out too badly though – we lost under a second a lap, so although we were 19s and two thirds of a lap adrift at the end of the 20-lap race, it represented a decent step forward over the weekend, especially compared with our last race. We’d learned a bit more about setups (with a lot of thanks to my rival TKM Dads, who took pity on me on probably shared a lot more information than they would normally!), Junior had been able to improve his lines a little, the Alpha Timing system’s lap stats were very useful and we’d had an enjoyable weekend.

So our season is over. The engine is in for a rebuild. The kart will be completely stripped as soon as I get a chance and we’ll take 6 weeks off. Unless I get the chance of a drive with a few of the other TKM Dads early in the New Year… 🙂

Cost of weekend: £24 petrol, £13 fuel for the kart, £35 practice fee, £49 race fee

Total spent so far: £4,376

Practice 13: just what the doctor ordered

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We came away from our third race day with mixed emotions – the kart had run smoothly and Junior had enjoyed himself but I was hoping that we might have been a little closer to the pace than it turned out we were. We started racing having reached the point where we were roughly a second off the pace but we hadn’t looked close to that kind of pace on race day. Although I know that race day is obviously a different kettle of fish to practising, the leaders were putting in the same kind of lap times you’d expect but we weren’t getting close to our best times. I think it is just all part of the learning process: I am definitely off the pace when it comes to judging the right pressures for the tyres (it isn’t quite a simple as it was in the summer!) and Junior definitely still has much to learn.

With all this in mind, I decided we’d head back to Clay for another practice day – it would give Junior a lot more seat time than he’d been getting on a race weekend and a chance to work on finding the time that would get us back on track (so to speak). I’d picked up the carb that I had had rebuilt for the last race day but forgotten to collect. The weather was pleasantly warm (for November) and it made a real change to turn up at Clay to see not only blue sky but a dry track!!! After the first session, Junior was already quicker than he had been a week earlier and it was nice to see him putting in lap after lap. It also gave me the opportunity to walk around the track and have a look at his lines – it was invaluable to see what really is happening out on track and provided plenty of little things to work on (although you could rightly question what do I know!).

The sessions were really pleasing – there were a couple of quick Junior TKM drivers on track for Junior to try to keep up with and he managed to nudge his times down from 37.3s to 36.6s, which only put him in the region of 0.6s off the pace. 194 laps was more than Junior had ever done before on a practice day and he was visually quicker by the end of the day and getting a much better exit out of the Top Bend. I know I have said this before so, whilst it was really pleasing, I’ll be cautiously optimistic about any potential improvement in our race pace.

Cost of day: £12 petrol, £7 fuel for the kart, £35 practice fee

Costs since last outing: £20 carb rebuild

Total spent so far: £4,255

Practice 12: Engine test

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I picked up the engine from the builders on Friday: he had had good look at the electrical side and could find no issues – the thing sparked every time. The crank misalignment had been resolved and some bearings replaced. My wallet was £138 lighter but more concerning was the uncertainty this left us with over the state of the engine and it left me with a decision: practice this weekend so that I could check the engine out or next weekend on the practice Saturday before we race. No really a choice, huh? It meant that the kart, which I’m a little bit ashamed to say had gone untouched since Dunks (I know… but you know I am usually *very* prompt at cleaning up), was going to need a fair bit of work done to get it ready. In the evening. In my dingy garage. With minimal lighting (even the street light outside my garage was broken!). Fours hours later and we were pretty much good to go – it was bedtime and I had barely seen the family although that seems to happen a lot since we bought this thing 🙁

Saturday – we were two miles from Clay when I realised I hadn’t actually checked to see if the track was open for practice!!! *Never* do this! Luckily, they were only two vans there when we arrived: there definitely was no event on 🙂 The track was bathed in the kind of glorious sunshine for which Clay is renowned:

If view when arriving at Clay October through April!

The view when arriving at Clay anytime from October through April!

There were two problems to begin with: when you are wanting to test a motor that has a suspected electrical issue, you really want to be able to test the spark. And for that, your starter really needs it’s battery, which I had left the battery at home on charge! Next problem was the flat tyre on our trolley: I hadn’t sorted it out which meant I’d be spending the day pumping up the trolley tyre between sessions. Ho hum – on with engine testing…

The kart started first time and we kept the kart to below 12,000rpm for the first session. That went smoothly and I pulled Junior in after ten minutes to let the engine cool and make sure all was well. The second session was hampered by a ‘feeling’. Junior has these from time to time and will drive straight into the pits and report them! Sometimes I really wish he’d just spend another lap trying to identify these ‘feelings’ although there are times when I wish he would just STOP THE KART IMMEDIATELY!!! You can’t have it both ways I guess 😉 It was time for slicks anyway so we took the kart off to check it out. I couldn’t find any real issues although the chainguard was knocking on the finger guard and he has objected to his side pods being too loose before so I tightened those a little. Typically, by the time our next session started it was starting to rain. Junior stuck in a handful of laps before coming in complaining about revs again. This was becoming a pretty big issue – he had reported it at Dunks last week and I really could have done without it becoming a persistent issue. It was raining pretty heavily now so we covered up the kart and sat in the car for an early lunch (scoff all you like – I bet you have an awning! ;)). Keen not miss two session, I got my waterproofs on an got the kart set up for the wet. The sun was shining by the time I had finished :-]

Anyway….we looked a little off the pace in the wet. I think fundamentally Junior doesn’t have the confidence to push as hard as he needs to. It’s one of things that comes practice I guess. It was a pretty windy day so, once the rain stopped, the track dried quite quickly. Junior was never going to be setting any PBs today and his revs never really got much above 15,000rpm but his lines *really* improved over the course of the afternoon – he clearly had a lot more confidence when the grip was there and I couldn’t really fault what he was doing (consistency excepted!). He looked pretty quick, which was really encouraging to see. I’ll be doing a Sun Dance on Saturday evening in a bid to keep the rain away – I am quite keen to see where were are in the overall scheme of things (I’ll be going by how many seconds off the penultimate finisher we are!). We had the odd problem – Junior came straight back in complaining something wasn’t right and, when we looked at it on the trolley, the engine mount bolts were loose and the chain had much more slack than it should. I think I may have only hand tightened the engine restraining bolt – I should be above this now 🙁 but at least I didn’t lose the mount brackets and bolts. The revs issue also raised it’s ugly head again although I think we might have solved this one – after changing the carb, he said it was fine for 15 laps before it happened again and he came in. At this point I noticed that the fuel was pretty low and, running a 3l tank, I am wondering if the fuel is moving from side to side around bends and we are starting to get air into the system. We kept the tank topped up and had no problems thereafter. Consider this a tip 😉

Of course it had to rain when we were 20 minutes from home, just to ensure I spend three hours rather than one tomorrow cleaning up :/

Cost of day: £12 petrol, £9 fuel for the kart, £35 practice fee

Costs since last post: £138 engine repairs

Total spent so far: £4,140 (Ouch – we’ve broken £4k!!! If you see my missus, don’t mention this blog!)

Practice 11: best laps and breakages

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The second of back-to-back Saturdays. Once again I found myself awake in the early hours, brain totally engaged thinking about the day. Having found the benefits of an early arrival (i.e. plenty of time to get ready for the first session without rushing) to my liking last week, we arrived an hour before the track opened. Unlike last week however, I hadn’t really been able to do as much of the preparation at home the night before owing to the poor weather (the garage has insufficient space to actually work in it and the lighting is awful) so the tyres (a fairly decent ‘new’ used set bought from the forums some time ago) hadn’t been inflated, I hadn’t gotten the new carb gaskets fitted, nor check everything over properly after I had stripped the back end down to dry it last week. The preparation hour was a bit of a rush; I put the new 3l fuel tank on, corrected the kind of mistakes you make when working in the dark (i.e. a front wheel with three wheel nuts but only two bolts used!) and got everything set. We were on the grid when the cadets came off at 10:10.

Our first problem of the day: the kart wouldn’t fire. I gave it a couple of aborted push start attempts but there wasn’t even the hint of it starting. I took it back to the pits and checked the ignition box wire connectors were ok and then checked the spark plug and found that we were not getting a spark. I whipped out the new plug that I had bought in the week for just this purpose and things looked more promising. Hastily, I tossed the old plug in the bin and we went for another attempt at getting on track. Once again the kart is showing no signs of starting so back to the pits again – it seemed the sparking was intermittent. I had used my only spare HT lead at a recent practice at Dunks. Good job that Clay has a shop… only the shop didn’t have one! Fortunately, I was able to borrow one (from my good friend also known as KartingDad’s Karting Dad!), swap the lead over and get the kart starting reliably on the stand and running fine (shame about the plug I threw in the bin full of wasps but never mind).

Junior was on the grid for the start of the second session but only managed three laps before coming in to complain about his brakes. I could see that one pad was rubbing the disc engine-side and there was quite a gap brake-side but assumed, as he had been running ok, that it I could just adjust it at the end of the session. He did another 15 laps but with a slow best time of 39.3s and still complaining about the brake. Back in the pits, I was surprised to see the brake-side pad was rubbing the disc and the gap was now engine-side. If you are thinking “grub screws”, you would be correct: the grub screws had abandoned ship! Pleasingly, I figured that one out straight away too. Disappointingly, this was a mechanic error – I wasn’t overly tightening the grub screws knowing grub screw damage can severely weaken an axle. I have to admit that I hadn’t checked the grub screws at the start of the day so it could well have been that I hadn’t tightened them enough (even for my liking) after refitting the axle. Everything else was still aligned and looking good so it was just the grub screws required – you’d think these would be in stock wouldn’t you? As far as shop stock went, today wasn’t my lucky day so they gave me the only one they had. Having lost a couple at home recently, I only had one spare and my Karting Dad had one also. Cue wandering around the pits trying to buy spares! I managed to get some but it wrote off the remainder of the morning with only 18 laps under our belt and a best (and faulty brake affected) time of 39.1s.

The third session was more like it: 23 laps with a best of 36.6 and lots of time still evident in Junior’s lines. The fourth was better again: running with the camera on-board for first time of the day, Junior managed a 36.5s before the camera mount snapped :S See if you can spot the moment in my YouTube video. I am not convinced this punt on the camera is working – the camera itself is fine but the case and mounts haven’t looked up to the massive vibration that karting poses. For this session we were also running with the MyTach GPS watch. I’ve still not really read up on this but the watch gives you top speed readings and we were looking to test sprocket sizes. Running a 78 sprocket (what we had always run at Clay although I know the quicker guys run a fair bit smaller), we did a fastest lap of 36.57 with a top speed of 64.6mph (ironically analysis at home showed this was not on the fastest lap, which included a top speed of 60.8mph). With our problems seemingly behind us, we switched to a 76 sprocket and ran the GPS again. This time Junior put in a 36.42, the top speed on that lap was 63.8mph and his maximum speed during the session was 64.7mph. Not much in it, I am sure you will agree – I put this down to inconsistency, particularly out of the Top Bend but there was some interesting data in there: he was 3mph quicker down the straight into The Hairpin on the smaller sprocket.

The track then seemed to cool a little and I think my not increasing the tyre pressures a fraction may have cost us a few tenths as we drifted in the 36.6/36.7s laps before we encountered our biggest problem of the day: Junior had been holding up a couple of RotaxMax’s for a few laps and ran wide at The Horseshoe, matey decided to stick his nose up on the outside and, as Junior moved wider to get a line for the bend, they hit – flicking our back end up and causing Junior to run onto the grass. He rejoined the track and ran for another 8 laps. I was very surprised when he came in and I took the chainguard off – the chain looked blackened and dry (it had been freshly lubed) and was missing a few chunks, then I noticed the teeth on the rear sprocket (a brand, spanking new one that day) were wrecked which lead me to a front sprocket with some nice sharp spurs! At this point I needed KartingDad’s Karting Dad (again) as I had no idea how to remove a front sprocket and have learnt I need to buy some new tools :S With hindsight, either of two changes I made during the day may have contributed to this: I removed the sprocket protectors after deciding to use 6 sprocket bolts instead of three (it looked like the front sprocket alignment was a little uneven as the rear sprocket was rotated so I add the extra bolts in case this was the cause and the protectors have three warped holes that no longer easily facilitate the extra bolts) and the chain was running a little looser than I normally have it (on advice!). We went back to the 78 sprocket (now my smallest), a 110  chain (also now my smallest) and fitted a spare front sprocket (thanks again, spares :)).

The track was quieter now and Junior spent the last couple of sessions racing his friends. His lines through the afternoon had really come on – a screech and a lift entering Billies always looks good, taking The Esses with a decent amount of kerb was becoming more of the norm and, although his exit from The Hairpin was still a little tight and he had acquired a new, slower line through The Horseshoe, he was carrying [a little] more speed into and out of the Top Bend. New PB!!! 36.11 🙂 Racing was obviously paying off. For the final session of the day, he spent a few laps following the South West Junior TKM champion 😉 until said champion decided he had enough and wanted to put Junior in his place. Junior didn’t mind though, he was chuffed to bits with another new PB – 36.06s.

So we got off to the worst possible start, endured a pretty expensive day, breakage wise but ended up clocking 166 laps and Junior making further progress.He is definitely quick enough to race. I have no lofty goals/dreams about exactly how competitive he will be, it would be nice to be close enough to the pack to race someone but I doubt that will be the case initially. Whether I am ready to race is another question. I am still making mistakes but I think that is just human nature – I’ll make more than most mechanics, I just need to make sure I learn from them! The troubleshooting is a worry as, if things go wrong, there is no second engine to pull out the trailer, nor is there likely to be for some time. We’re just going to have to see how we get on 🙂

Cost of day: £12 petrol, £7 fuel for the kart, £35 practice fee, £5 grub screws

Cost of replacement stuff: £10 ‘new’ chainguard from eBay, £100 new spark plug cap/spark plug/HT lead/6 grub screws/10-tooth front sprocket/Talon size 76 rear sprocket/Panther (I know I could have spent less but I am keen to see if it is stronger and longer lasting) 108 link chain (from Kart Parts UK/Spellfame)

Total spent so far: £3,396

I plan to limit outgoings to race weekends and associated running costs/repairs only for the remainder of the year so kick me if you see me post about new bits and pieces!