Race 16: When you pick the wrong tyres…

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Our final outing of the season took place at Llandow at the weekend. It was a very strange one weather-wise and nothing like the mild 12 degrees sunshine that the Met Office had promised us. I had opted for a warm setup on the back of our experience last month, where we were setup for changeable conditions that never came on what turned out to be a fairly grippy track. I also opted not to cover the kart on the trailer for the journey across the bridge as untangling the cargo net can take an age and I’d covered the kart unnecessarily for the past couple of months. Driving through the early morning mist and seeing how wet the kart was in the rear view mirror, I was already irritated by the time we arrived and the brake disc was already rusted! We arrived early as I wanted to get the chassis checked before getting the front bar welded in during the post-season. It was one of those things where I was in two minds whether to do it before or after the weekend but we were at the track and I wasn’t sure that Nigel would be wanting to do it after racing on the Sunday. Pleasingly, it was straight anyway.

Junior getting unusually artistic with the camera!

Junior getting unusually artistic with the camera!

I had assumed that the sun would burn through the mist quite quickly but it never really happened: the first couple of sessions were definitely wet and Junior enjoyed overtaking people he wouldn’t normally overtake, albeit with them treading their way around on cold slicks! The third session was more questionable and we went for slicks, not because I really cared whether or not it was the optimal choice but I wanted Junior to get a feel for the trickier conditions. This went badly: Junior really struggled and I just knew that, when he indicated that he was coming in, there was no mechanical issue – I almost waved him on but didn’t in case there really was a problem. There wasn’t and I was annoyed! There was clearly a large gap between his pace on the wrong tyre and those of his more experienced rivals but when was he planning to make a start on bridging this gap – midway through a final when it suddenly started raining??? I should have sent him back out but didn’t, instead making him watch the others to see how they still attacked the corners and made the most of the grip that was available. The conditions continued to affect our practice through the day; although the track had dried, the mist lingered, the track was cold and we really struggled to get the tyres up to temperature. We had another disagreement when Junior decided he’d had enough of my telling him where he was losing time. At that point I really just wanted to be somewhere other than at the track, away from some ungrateful kid that didn’t seem to appreciate how much time and effort I put into trying to make him drive around in circles that fraction quicker. I went for a walk but there isn’t really anywhere to walk in a place as remote as Llandow. Even the cars on the circuit next door were on their lunch break! I went back on got on with it.

It wasn’t until we hit 15psi (I’d never before exceeded 12psi) that there was any real sign of wear and, of course, we had to get off of the warm setup! At that point, our pace was looking ok; it was clear from last month that there was a fair chunk of time to be found from some of the lines that Junior was taking and he seemed to adopt a conciliatory approach in looking like he was actually making an effort (as opposed to disappearing with his mates between sessions). He did show some improvement. Our straight line speed looked quite good but we just didn’t seem to be getting the power down early enough when exiting onto the straight. I’ve often wondered whether Junior is just trying too hard: taking too much speed into the corner, forcing him to enter early and compromising his exit speed. With regards to this particular corner though, his heavy crash into the barriers back in August may have been/may still be inhibiting him. After our earlier disagreements, it was a positive end to the day.

Race day came and although we were at the track by 8am, I still found myself rushing to get the kart ready for scrutineering (note to self: remove the sprocket protector after practice to make aligning the chain with the race engine that bit quicker!). The track was damp first thing but, by the time we got to the warm-up, it was clearly a track for slick tyres. After our back-to-back 2-6-6 draws, it was very nice to be drawn 3-5-7 😉 I had passed on my instructions (the amount of time and money I put into this ‘hobby’ of ours, I expect the right to say what I think and for him to listen to it, whether or not he chooses to take any notice) and, in this case, he ignored it: gifting away the inside line as he sought a wider entrance in the hairpin and getting passed by the bloke in fifth. This allowed the second placed kart an easy move to cement his position and we started the race in earnest in fourth place. We gradually fell back through the field with Junior complaining of massive understeer. This is where my inexperience was becoming a factor – we’ve not really had to contend with unpredictable conditions until Clay the previous weekend, where we had performed similarly poorly. I brought the front end in and moved the back out, the thinking being that we had too much rear grip and it was pushing the front end on. Our tyres pressures, not as high as they were on Saturday but still higher than I’d normally have been racing on, could well have been a factor.

Heat #2 was disappointing: The first eight karts were separated by 2.5s and we lead home the final three some 6s adrift and 0.7s off of the pace. This time the problem was power – we had none, apparently. Anywhere. I checked the carb, which was fine and I was left scratching my head. It wasn’t just Junior struggling – I wasn’t really sure what was going on. I’d normally have phoned a friend at this point to talk through the symptoms only, this week, he was next door racing us!!!

I changed the engine for Heat #3; we had been running fairly well towards the end of the Saturday on the ‘practice’ engine and, with little to lose, I wanted to see if there was really a performance problem. If I am going to take a punt, I find the third heat to be the perfect time as you can revert to your former setup over lunch. The race saw a fairly well strung out field and us in a close battle for sixth with a couple of karts that were quicker than us. Junior was clearly harder to pass and only lost sixth place on the line. Although he had had a decent tussle, the people we were fighting with were 0.5s quicker and we were now a full second off of the pace!

So onto the final: I was considering what changes to make over lunch and, as we had been slower in Heat #3, the race engine was back on. With the times coming down, I was considering changing the axle to lose some grip but then the rain came. The first three finals saw the grids all opt for wets but it hadn’t rained since lunch and didn’t look like it was going to rain any further. This really would be a close call. With two laps of the other class final remaining and everyone waiting on the dummy grid, nobody had any wheels on. At Clay, I’d have been glued to the Alpha Timing screen that faces out of the office window at this point, glued to the lap times for clues. Unfortunately, Llandow doesn’t have a screen in the office window and I’ve banged the Alpha Timing drum before now. From what I have seen at Clay and Llandow, it’s simply miles better than MyLaps. I will have to do my own timing in future but the track still looked damp, in contrast to how it had looked when it really was drying on the Saturday, and Junior had shown a preference for an inter tyre in similar conditions only the day before. Someone behind us blinked first and went with inters, my mind was already made up – we were off the pace anyway and had little to lose (other than our third choice wets) – and we fitted inters as the rest of the grid went with slicks. I was quite pleased with this as it meant that, if the gamble worked, we’d have a real chance. Having only ever having had to toss the coin once before, in our very first face thirteen months ago, I had a 100% record with my tyre punts. Until now! The race started and I knew almost immediately that this was going to backfire; the speed that the leaders carried into The Hook proved beyond doubt that this was absolutely not a slippery track :/ Being ‘guided’ off onto the grass moments later didn’t help our cause although it proved to be the only opportunity we’d have to get any moisture into the tyres! We fell further away from the main pack, leading the back three but losing two seconds per lap. The leader’s times were insanely quick – the track seemed faster than it had been all weekend. Junior held off the challenge of the only other runner on inters but that was little consolation although at least he could see the funny side when he came in. Speaking to the other Dads after it appeared that it really had been a very close call but we were one of only two who had gotten it so badly wrong :S It was another learning experience and my only regret was that I had upgraded our ‘worst’ inters the previous week!

Oops!

Oops!

It was a strange weekend – I don’t normally fall out with Junior (although we bicker like a couple of old women) and, although Saturday ended well enough, I was still a little peeved. Sunday had again shown up a lack of race pace but whereas the previous week at Clay I had been convinced that it was Junior’s lines and/or him trying too hard that was the main issue, this week I was looking a little closer to home – it had shown up my lack of real understanding of how to deal with grip (both the lack of and when to lose it). Could this have been the reason that Junior was again struggling?

So our season is over and I am looking forward to six weeks off. Karting really does dominate my personal time so it will be nice to take a bit of a break. I will be working to get a better understanding on the grip issue though: longer/shorter axles, axle types and front versus rear widths as I was struggling at times – it certainly wasn’t my finest hour. I don’t get that much in the way of detailed feedback from my driver but it could also be that I am not asking the right questions. It would be one thing for Junior to be taking his time to get the track right but it would bother me a lot if I were impeding his progress so I will be spending a fair amount of time researching and my good friends can expect a question or twelve in the not-too-distant future 😉 I’ll also be spending a little money on our chassis: I was unsure whether or not to spend any money on a £25, four year old chassis but I don’t like it looking tatty. I’ll be glad to get the front bar welded in as it is a nagging doubt in my mind as to whether Junior has suffered for my not getting it done sooner and then I plan to have it blasted and powder coated. In the New Year, we’ll get everything together and look to get a few practice days in, perhaps even some coaching! 😮

Cost of weekend: £95 practice/ race entry, £26 petrol, £13 fuel, £34 – jig check, bead retainers, throttle spring

Total spent this year: £4,375

 

Race 15: Thanks and farewall Clay!

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It was nice to be heading back to Clay on Sunday. We hadn’t expected to be back racing there so soon having made the decision to switch to Llandow but it felt good to going to the place that still feels like home, blasting what has become our ritual DiRT 2 soundtrack as we headed through Somerset to spend the day with the extended TKM family. The final round was set up nicely with seven points separating the top three drivers and our aim was to be competitive without tripping any of the contenders over!

We hadn’t participated in the practice Saturday partly because that wasn’t part of the deal when I offered Junior the chance to compete here instead of going to the TKM day at Whilton Mill but, more significantly, Mrs KartingDad had committed me to some time with the girls! The kart had been set up well in advance, however, and so prep work and scrutineering passed without issue. The forecast for the day had been varied through the week but it was a beautiful autumn morning at the track; just as well since we needed to scrub in new slicks (although we were hoping for some precipitation just to mix things up a little). Our draw wasn’t the greatest; 4-2-7 for the three heats but Junior had been starting fairly well of late, both at Clay and Llandow. Having said that, we had a stinker of a start in Heat #1, Junior was last after two corners and I was relieved to see the false start flag waved (there was a tramlines clampdown in progress at Clay). Unfortunately, things panned out in similar fashion on the restart! The front two in the championship both span in The Esses but it impeded us and another kart and meant that Junior was driving around on his own in 5th place for the first half of the race before he was caught by the other impeded kart and the two diced the last half of the race. It was clear then that our pace wasn’t great – Junior was really struggling with the back end on the still damp track but it was the best racing that he had all day and he made a nice move around the outside of The Horseshoe on the final lap to seal 5th. For the first time ever, we were even the quickest in one of the sectors 😀

Heat #2 was worse still: Junior started second and got a reasonable start but was on the receiving end of a lunge into The Esses, had to brake hard and was hit by another kart, spinning him around. He was a distant last although he didn’t suffer the ignominy of being lapped and was able to ease a little with a view to tyre preservation.

Heat #3 was something of an eye-opener as we were so slow down the straight on lap two that half the field passed us (and the driver who had tucked in behind us had to watch everybody else go by!). I assumed that our gearing was out (when preparing the kart in the week, I had discovered that our usual Clay sprocket was damaged and opted to go up a tooth rather than buy a sprocket that I would likely never use again). Junior thought he had made a mistake getting out of the Top Bend so that might have been the cause but no matter: we came in last of the finishers. At this point, I was just wishing the rest of the day to pass quickly. We were struggling much the same as we had been on our last couple of visits, if not more so, with around six tenths to find with the front runners. Junior was complaining about rear end grip and the track, after some heavy rain on the Saturday, was proving tricky for many people although the times were clearly there – we just weren’t able to get it right.

I didn’t change much for the final as I hadn’t really changed much over the day – just the rear width in an attempt to find some more grip and another small tweak to the tyre pressures, although I did go down a tooth, borrowing a smaller sprocket from one of the other dads rather than buying one for 10 minutes use 😉 Our start was ok but Junior tagged and span someone in the middle of The Esses 🙁 He hadn’t made contact with anyone for ages and I hate it when it does happen, accidental though it was. Junior claimed their back end was going and he couldn’t avoid it – whatever, the end result was the same. Fortunately for us it was deemed a racing incident and not called in by the race observer. We were some seven seconds adrift at the end of the 18 laps, ahead of another driver who had got caught up in our incident and the driver who we span but who caught and passed us before getting a mechanical for his bumper hanging off (he says whistling and looking at the sky 😉 ).

As for the championship, there was something like four points separating three drivers after Heat #2 but one of the contenders had a carb issue on the rolling lap for Heat #3 and it had to be me that reached him first and pushed him most of the way through Sector 1!!! As it turned out, his kart wouldn’t have started even if I had been pushing him with a truck 🙁 The final was still very close and the table did change a couple of times mid-race but the end result was decisive.

So congratulations to a worthy winner (I missed the emotional dad moment) and commiserations to those who came so close.  It was fun racing at Clay in our first full season; the TKM community there is top notch. The season at Clay has been a real roller coaster from the start; doubting whether we’d get a grid (the boys from Llandow saved the grid by turning up at Round #1 and staying for the entire season), finishing third whilst still on novice plates, getting black flagged for, well, let’s just leave it there, then thinking we were getting there before ultimately finding that we weren’t. Both Junior and I have a shedload of new friends on Facebook and I enjoyed sharing all of Junior’s moves with the friendly marshal on my pushing post at The Hairpin 🙂 With the same reflective atmosphere in the car on the way home, now is the absolutely the right time to be moving on. I was really glad we had taken part in the final round and to race with some good friends for very likely the last time (you know that’s not the end though, folks – we still have Christmas Karting at TeamSport to come!) but we were further off now than we had been for quite a few months. I spent a lot of time that evening wondering if I could have done anything to improve the kart? Ride height? Width? Tyre pressures? Should I have gotten the front bar welded in by now? I had opted not to as I thought it might have been wet by now. We’d also snapped an engine head bolt and, although that wouldn’t have attributed to Junior’s biggest gripe (lack of grip), perhaps that might have impacted our pace a touch. I will regret us never really cracking the track when it looked, mid-season, as though we were really making progress. Perhaps it was too much to hope Junior would be band on the pace but I couldn’t help but think there was still a decent chunk of time left in the driver. You could argue that we hadn’t really gotten in enough seat time, having not practiced at Clay since August and only at Llandow on the race weekend Saturdays. I do need to try to fund some more practice time over the winter so that we don’t suffer similarly at Llandow next season. I had always dismissed the notion of coaching, believing that was diverting funds better spent on things like tyres, but it’s something I’d seriously consider now. We’ll see out the final round at Llandow this weekend and then pack up for the year. If you are interested in a decent pit space at Clay for next year, now is the time to get in touch with the club – tell them I sent you 😉

Cost of weekend: £50 race entry, £12 petrol, £8 fuel, £6 engine head bolt

Total spent this year: £4,206

 

 

Irresistible Llandow offer for Senior TKM!

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Ok, so I don’t normally have the time to worry about Senior TKM (although, to be fair, I don’t have the time for any other class when we are racing!) but Llandow Kart Club have a great offer for Seniors joining their November round (that’s next weekend): £60 for the entire weekend – how could any driver turn down the chance to drive such a challenging and varied track for such a pittance? 😉 If only we had a senior engine. And we wouldn’t thereafter be committed to racing with adults…

So pass up the opportunity to do whatever fun round your club is arranging for next month, when you’ll be racing with one eighth of the normal sized grid with shorter races (because it’s dark earlier) for full price and do an extra round this month 🙂 What nicer way to round off your season?

Bargain!!!

Bargain!!!

 

You know you’ve made it when…

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We're famous! Or is that infamous!?!

We’re famous! Or is that infamous!?!

So I was sat on the sofa on Saturday afternoon, having a tea break midway through getting Junior’s kart sorted for Clay this weekend and browsing the forums (as you do), when I got tagged in Facebook comment by one of my friends. It wasn’t immediately obvious what was going on: there was a photo of our old chassis in my garage that I had posted on the blog shortly before I gave the friend the chassis to use for his dyno testing. I had just replaced it with our ‘newer’ chassis and, as it was an old (2008) chassis showing signs of another crack, I was happy just to avoid keeping it in some form of service and not chucking it in the skip!

Then the penny dropped: the blog had been shared by The Kart Bandit!!! In case, you aren’t on Facebook and don’t read Karting Magazine(I really don’t need to explain this do I?), The Kart Bandit is famous for crash pics and memes (I had to look up what that meant initially!) and generally entertains the karting community. It’s followed by all the kids and most of the dads so my Facebook notifications went through the roof for a couple of hours!

I’m not sure what people make of the blog really and I’ve always been amazed when I meet strangers who comment on it. It was originally intended to help noobs but has really become more of a diary, a record of my karting accounts and some of my more printable ramblings. Of course, I’ve always tried to make it entertaining and having endured more than our fair share of mishaps hasn’t harmed in this respect – I think it resonates with people since we’ve all come through the noob phase. My concern is that I should be moving on from this phase at some point, right?!?

This is what happens to your web traffic when you get a mention by The Kart Bandit!

This is what happens to your web traffic when you get a mention by The Kart Bandit!

Back to Clay already?!?

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Following our decision to switch to Llandow from Clay, it seems a little odd to be going back after missing *an entire round* but there is method to the madness: I had originally agreed to take Junior to the Tal-Ko TKM Practice Day at Whilton Mill on Friday (yesterday) but, after the Parents IKR Race last weekend, I hadn’t really had the time or inclination to get everything sorted. I’d also checked a map and realised how far Whilton actually is from us! It would have been twice the distance of our regular tracks and, although only 2.5 hours, everything seems longer when you’re squeezed into a Clio, driving at 50mph(-ish) 😉 with your eye on the trailer for the most part (and that’s just on a dry, sunny day!). So I came up with a plan and offered Junior the choice of practice at Whilton or the race Sunday for the final round at Clay (in addition to both days at Llandow the following weekend). We already have new slicks for this month, which would have been doing only one race and then getting packed up for the season, so they’ll be perfect for doing Clay and Llandow (but not much else thereafter) and I’d have been going to watch in any case;  the JTKM title is going right down to the wire with only seven points separating the top three drivers. I also know that I’d have spent every minute stood there asking myself why the hell we weren’t taking part! Junior opted for Clay in a nano-second. It will be good to be back in the Clay TKM fold even if this could be the last time for a while (the JTKM grid there for next season could be slim to non-existent, even without us).

So we’ll head to Clay next Sunday (I’m spending family time with the ladies on the Saturday even if the kart budget could have been stretched to include the practice day) and hopefully do a better job of keep up with the pacesetters. I spent most of today building the kart and sorting out the trailer (I find a leisurely day cleaning and setting up can be very therapeutic). I even managed to put a whole set of new slicks on all by myself 😉 Now there’s something that leaves you feeling very proud of yourself! If the picture of me, red-faced and dripping with sweat as I fight that final front tyre ever makes it onto social media, someone is going to be in trouble…

IKR Parents Race!!!

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It had been a while since our TKM Dads Day Out, where a few of us Dads took the junior karts and engines out for a first run in a two stroke kart, and I was contemplating arranging another when an opportunity to do something a little more extreme came up – a dedicated parents class at the opening round of the Clay Pigeon Winter IKR Series!!! It seemed like a good idea at the time, we mustered six entries and endured a 300-post Facebook thread as we debated weights (none), tyres (any, change whenever you like), engines (any junior class engine) and race types (MSA-style three heats and a final as opposed to the IKR-style qualifying, heat, pre-final and final) and exchanged a lot of banter. It seemed like a really good idea at the time and promised to be a lot of fun!

As the event got closer, I was a little nervous having only driven the kart for 100 laps or so in June (when I was hesitant to try to overtake anybody in case I took them out) and now facing the prospect of actually racing one of these things, even if it was in the friendliest of grids! I was reasonably quick last time – a 37.4s lap was pretty pleasing so I was hoping to push on in spite of the cooler conditions. I had sorted out Junior’s practice tyres and numbered them from one to six and then mounted sets five and six! This would be an opportunity to clear the garage of a couple of sets of slicks if nothing else. Having not really had the chance to do anything on Junior’s kart since Llandow the previous weekend, I had taken up the kind offer of loaning a rolling chassis on the basis that I wouldn’t have a chance to build up my spare chassis and it saved me messing around with Junior’s kart. The trouble was that this meant finding space for another kart in the garage and so I left it until the final evening to collect the kart and add our engine, exhaust and bodywork. Talk about ball-ache!!! Let’s just say that I hadn’t really anticipated all of the little things that were different and, with scrutineering early the next morning, I could really have done with an earlier night :/

This was my first experience of IKR and, as we were competing in a guest class with no championship, maybe things were even more relaxed for us than it was for the other competititors but the contrast between IKR and MSA was huge: the number of people working from trailers as opposed to from awnings was much greater (so we were right at home) and you could tell that this was a much less serious affair; from the types of karts, the age range of the drivers (young and old) and the intensity of the scrutineering process (more of a safety check). There were some things that were along the same lines though – Alpha Timing, race commentary and social media updates were all in attendance.

The day basically ran along the lines of practice in the morning, a break and drivers briefing at lunchtime and then the serious stuff began. It was a really good format and offered plenty of track time for our £40; the morning was a bit iffy from a personal performance perspective – I was putting in 38/39s laps and had no grip whatsoever! As per last time, I never really felt in total control of the kart at any point but it was good to be on-track amongst friends. One of the beauties of IKR is that we could pretty much set our own rules and, although the club had provisionally assigned us an IKR race format, we decided to go with the MSA setup so that we could mix the grid up with random draws for three heats before the final. The races went really well although our starts were a little hit and miss – I think only heat one saw us start as a compact grid you would expect to see normally, after that reliability became an issue for some! I dipped into the 37s in heat one (where I was going nicely in second place until I was helped into a spin by a ‘friend’!!!) but my times went backwards from there – obviously it had to be the tyres 😉 and I was never on the pace of the front two (a TKM Dad and Rotax Mum). Easily the highlight of the day was my restarting myself after spinning into Billies; I had lost a lap waiting to be started when I was spun in the first heat and, keen not to lose so much ground in heat three, I saw a gap in the traffic and took my chance… I picked up the back end and ran for a few paces, dropped the kart down and was amazed to hear the engine fire up! I quickly jumped in, got my foot on the gas and IT ONLY BLOODY PICKED UP!!! I even got a round of applause from the Juniors (who we had taken as our pit assistants and signed on as our push starters) 😀

It was a great day; the weather held off, it was nice not to be constantly tweaking the kart setup to try to find those elusive tenths (it would have been pointless since most of those tenths were sat in the seat!) and just enjoy the banter. I was really impressed with the event as a whole. I think IKR suffers from a lack of serious competition at the front currently, at least at Clay which is in its infancy, but I would consider it for Junior if things progressed and I am a huge fan of the tyre rule enforced at Clay (the TKM class run on Maxxis SLC tyres at £70/set and which must be used for three meetings). I won’t be rushing to jump back into a two stroke (if truth be told, I’d be more tempted by Prokarts) but it is something I am sure we’ll do again at some point. Congrats to the runaway winners, thanks to everybody who loaned me stuff – a kart, a racesuit, to the Krispy Kreme Donut Man (the strawberries & kreme donut was something else) and also to Mr South West IKR for shoehorning us into the day’s programme 🙂

Karting Dad leads from pole!!! 😀

Race 14: A first podium!!!

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I know that putting the plaque/sticker onto 30-odd trophies must get dull very quickly but they could have put ours on straight!

I know that putting the plaque/sticker onto 30-odd trophies must get dull very quickly but they could have put ours on straight!

Ok, so it wasn’t the most glorious of podium finishes: adrift of the front two and only claiming third following an unfortunate mechanical flag for the driver who was holding us off fairly comfortably but we aren’t fussy! Junior got a great start from fifth to keep out those on the even numbered side of the grid as they looked to stop the odd-numbered train steaming through. His starts have really improved over the past few months and gaining places has become quite common but this was the most impressive start I have seen him make so far – there really was only three kart lengths separating the first, third and fifth placed starters in the final. He was never going to deny the S1 driver that was behind him for very long though – Junior’s pace was good considering it was only his third race at Llandow but we had been at least half a second off the real pace for most of the weekend. Llandow is a pretty tough track to master and, although I was hoping that we might be a couple of tenths closer than last time, our tyres (on their third race day) definitely had their best days behind them and I hadn’t changed the kart setup to accommodate the track which was a fair bit quicker than I had expected (the rain that had been passing over us for most of the day only finally arrived after racing had finished). As soon as the race was over, my focus switched to hoping/praying that we made it through scrutineering, having never gone through anything more than a brief carb measurement check before – our weight was perfect, only 300g over minimum weight and then it was onto the the engine check. Although I had had the engines confirmed legal only the previous week, it was still one of those moments where you just hope there is nothing wrong and, happily, that was the case!

The rest of the weekend had been somewhat uneventful, barring a major mechanic’s faux pas – we’d spent the Saturday on the practice engine and switched to the race engine for the final session of the day. Surprisingly we were three tenths slower and I’d spent most the journey home pondering which engine we should start with for the race day; had the track slowed that much? Had the bigger bore that was enforced upon us at the last rebuild affected the performance of the race engine? We decided to go with the practice motor for race day and were at the track nice an early on the Sunday morning to get the kart ready. I put the engine on and was just boasting to one of the other dads how nice a feeling it is when you get your engine mount bolts in the right place first time (if there is a secret in doing this consistently, please let me know!) as Junior was filling out the scrutineering form. As I went to confirm the engine number (the engine is still relatively new to me and has a two-digit combination of numbers that I keep getting muddled), I realised that I had put the race engine on. I couldn’t understand how this could be – the last engine we used on the Saturday still had the Mychron rev wire attached. It was then that I realised we had spent most of Saturday putting unwanted hours on the race engine!!! That also explained why we were three tenths off in the last session :S Our race engine lives in a certain box and, when then engines had had their cranks aligned, they must have gone back in the wrong boxes.

As for the heats, we were drawn 2-6-6 for the second successive month, which Junior really was unhappy about. I had emailed the club after last month’s meeting to express my dissatisfaction about a) having received the unfavoured even-numbered draw in all three heats (everyone should get at least one odd-numbered start) and b) receiving the same grid position for two of the three heats (a new experience for us at the time). The club assured us that the draws were random and I have no qualms about that but the process for doing so is clearly pretty poor, doing only the minimal to keep the drivers grid draws adding up to roughly the same whilst taking little else into consideration (our 2-6-6 draw being vastly inferior to the 7-3-3 of another driver, for example – especially once you consider their placings after the first bend). The club use the MyLaps timing system, a poor substitute for Alpha Timing in my opinion but it does its primary job (timing) and is probably a fair bit cheaper at a time when the clubs entry numbers are worryingly low (42 this month!). MyLaps does not have the grid draw functionality and the club are using something called Super Sports, which I know nothing about! I’ve been in touch with the club again since and I might even try to write something that might be able to do a better job but I was also at pains to point out that, whilst this could be improved, we’ve really enjoyed every other aspect of racing at the club since we came for the first time in August.

Back to the racing, Junior started on the outside in heat one and losing only one place around the first hairpin was a minor success in itself! We lost a couple more places over the course of the race to the quicker drivers but held onto fifth which was a decent result. Heat two was a low point, Junior had a driver all over him although we clearly had the legs on them in the straight. As he disappeared out of my view (somehow my ‘pushers’  bib was a different number to last time but was still assigned the post in the furthest corner of the track!), I heard a thump and the commentator announced excitedly “And he’s gone off, that was a huge impact”, there were an anxious few moments before Junior came back into view – his rival’s brake disc had snapped and he had hit the back of Junior before ploughing into the tyres. A few laps later our chain snapped – our very first chain snap and very likely a result of the incident a few laps earlier. Heat three saw us continue to trail the pace by half a second. We gained a place to finish fifth again and match our fastest time of the day. The day was nothing more than ok until the final and I really wonder whether a set of Maxxis slicks are good for racing anywhere more than twice – I had hoped it might just have been Clay, although the first race on these tyres at Clay had taken a surprising amount of tread from them. I still hope we can do three races on a set at Llandow alone.

So a second trophy for the Junior’s shelf (no signs of needing a cabinet just yet!).

Cost of weekend: £95 race entry and practice, £24 petrol, £10 fuel, £13 bridge toll, £160 new slicks (for next month), seat strut and new chain

Spent since last post: £170 crank alignment, a new seal and a sprocket

Total spent this year: £4,130 :S

Things that break when you want it least…

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You gave yourself that afternoon to prepare the kart (in daylight) for the weekend. You did something else first that took an hour and you have a parent’s evening at 6pm but it’s ok: all you need to do is change the axle, clean a few things up and put on the engine, carb and exhaust. You’re tightening the brake caliper bolt. You go to give it one final turn and then ‘CLUNK’ – the brake caliper bolt shears midway between the bearing hanger and caliper!!! Cue repeated heavy swearing…

Luckily I managed to drill out the bolt and reassemble the kart, rush my tea and get Junior to school! I’m still not fully comfortable with the disassembly of the brake system and am yet to ‘fly solo’ when it comes to bleeding the brakes but this will change tomorrow since it’s my only free time before the weekend – just one of those things that I have to learn to become competent at.

Other semi-interesting things that have cost me money this week: I stopped by the local engine builder to confirm that the engines were legal following the illegal engine modification scandal. I was pretty certain they were good – the previous owner is easily the most knowledgeable person I’ve met in TKM (I guess when you are spending Super One money, you have to be!) and had assured me that there was nothing to worry about but it was one of those things that you just have to have done so that you know without the slightest element of doubt that your engine is legal. Both engines were legal. Unfortunately both had crank alignment issues – we almost certainly damaged the newly built race engine when we ran it in with what I suspect to have been a bad hanger/bearing combo. It’s been a tight month karting budget-wise and I could definitely have done without any engine bills 🙁

Spending raceday at home?!?

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It was a bit of an odd day today; I had some things to do on the kart in preparation for the October round at Llandow next weekend and obviously the F1 was also on but there was a definite feeling that we should have been somewhere else today. Twelve months on from our first race weekend and this was the first time we hadn’t raced at Clay. I had still spent the night before changing tyres (although this time I was actually doing it the week before, rather than the normal night before a race weekend!) and today I was just attending to some bits and pieces on the kart: the carbon fibre floor tray is back on (we are now overweight for the gold restrictor) and I replaced the hub and steering column bearings (the former had been mentioned by the scrutineer last time). Junior was on his computer but I noticed he had the live timing on next to him for the entire day – if I had taken him down to watch, he’d have gotten bored in minutes but he could watch some statistics changing every 15 seconds or so?!?

It seems we missed quite an eventful day with things getting tense championship-wise as we approach the end of the season but we’re looking forward to next weekend and we hope to continue to find another tenth or two in our bid to keep up with the front runners.

And I’ve just noticed that I need to catch up on my costs for Year 2!!!