Went Enduro Racing Yesterday….

Thu Mar 10, 2011:

Our 3rd go at the enduro racing tonight came with our best position, aptly 3rd place!

We were on the top circuit so had the advantage of having used it on my birthday last year and we decided on doing 3 x 30min stints so minimum pit stops. The tactic worked except I called in Matt on a yellow, but by the time he got to the pit lane it had gone green and also 5 karts pit in front of him causing a traffic jam in the pit lane, with the first car in the que not even having a driver ready to get in the kart. This delayed us for over 2 laps. We also had to tone down our competitiveness from previous enduros as the marshals were much stricter this time as Sean found out picking up our first black flag and getting us 1min in the sin bin also costing us over 2 laps.

We would def have had 1st place if neither of those had occurred and probably would have grabbed 1st even with just one of them.

The upstairs track is a far more relaxing circuit, I think it has less “fair” overtaking places than the downstairs track. Playing a bit rougher tho this one offers some sneaky moves if only there were one less marshal watching over us.

Well done to Sean for getting our best lap time of 25.51sec, my best lap was 25.7secs and Matt’s was 26.1, Matt however did all the donkey work and got us into 1st place up until the pit stop disaster (my fault for calling him in when it was full) :oops:

29/03/11 Upper Circuit

Was just me and Matt this time as Sean had to work. The practice was turned into a shambles as somehow a driver managed to leave the pits and go the wrong way around the track doh, the other teams seemed to mostly be estate agents from around Crawley so possibly explains the above lol. One of them turned up in his own Sparco race suit and lid with kart boots as well so we assumed he would be pretty fast…. turns out he just new how to disobey al the rules and was quite happy ramming folk into the wall while overtaking them under yellow flags, he was not massively fast either so I guess that the blatent rule braking was his way of making up time, prat!

Matt:

We ran a one stop strategy, with Matt starting in 11th position on the grid. He had a great start and was cutting through the others in swift order taking 5th place by lap 4:

By lap 18 he had gotten 3rd place and had knocked a second off his lap times:

By lap 35 he had gone below 27sec but “The Goonies” were steaming ahead by 2 laps now:

Lap 47 had us take 2nd place (ok Matt lol)

and by lap 66 Matt had managed to drag back a lap off the leaders and got his best lap time as well

Around the 45min mark we looked to call Matt in and do a driver change. Catherine timed it perfectly and we had a very slick change over. After a couple of laps I found my rhythm and also had a few clear laps, this was short lived as the inevitable ensued as should have been predicted by such a large majority of the teams being from the same party and they started to crash lots and bump lots and caused a frustrating amount of red flags and yellows. This wouldn’t be the end of the world normally but thanks to the chap in his own Sparco suit not paying attention to the flags meant that everyone behind him also had to do the same else he would gain advantage over them. I get why they were doing it but it meant the whole of us kept getting told off under the flags. One of the marshalls was explaining to me why they were getting a bollocking when the lights went green too so I was even further behind after that restart :@

This was the first time we have done 45min sessions and it all turned into a blur, thought it would have been more tiring but we obviously are getting more used to it now, bit like my 480mile commute to work each week lol

Towards the end of my session I caught up with a back marker and although he was def loads slower than me he was driving a very defensive line which I was finding very hard to work out a way to pass which meant that I had drivers catch up behind me. The one that bothered me the most was the driver from “The Goonies” and he was being massively violent in his nudges trying to push me off line and ultimately he spun me out on the top of the down ramp. I think this is what cost us the race tbh and it was me getting rattled by his bullying that made me put myself in the position where he could spin me out. I wern’t happy at all with him as I felt he was excessive in his bumping. I also at the bottom of the down ramp which is foot to the floor and around 40mph at a guess ended up smashin into a kart that lost control for apparently no reason except ineptness lol, that knocked the wind out of me a bit lol. Anyhows, I was actually surprised when we all got called into the pits, thought we were all gonna get a bollocking for being rough, turned out it was the end of the race lol

We came second in the end after what felt like quite a dirty fight so am pleased with that, the chap that was bashing the hell outta me didn’t get no handshake from neither me or Matt and I don’t think he’d won any friends out of the team that came third either lol.

Next time we’ll get the first place I think we deserve