As the weather foreast had predicted it was a dry race day at Teesside Karting for the latest round of the Championship. As usual, DO Racing Fanboy, Liam Slikstone, was in fine form pretending to do some kind of interview in a desperate bid to stand next to me, how sweet.
After last month's opening round got off to a flyer with a win in race 2, I was confident of another strong performance and was focussed on delivering the best race weekend I could in the dry, despite having a cold.
Qualifying
The difficulty with qualifying is that as the karts are drawn at random you never really know if you need to change karts until after the session, obviously if there's a flat tyre then it's pretty straight forwards though. I got kart 22 this time round and headed out on circuit for the 10 minute qualy session; the other difficult thing with qualifying is finding space, it's all too easy to get caught up into battling someone for track position rather than focussing on setting the bets lap time.
I wound up at about the same pace as a small group lapping at around the same pace, something which was ultimately reflected in our best times. After qualifying, positions 7 to 13 on the grid were separated by less than 0.2 seconds, I placed P11 for race 1, not bad, but so close to being a lot better!
Race 1
Despite a close call in qualifying, P11 wasn't so bad and it gave me an opportunity to build a good result through the race, it didn't quite work out that way however. Lap 1 felt like it was a mess but in reality my first 3 laps were a poor performance as I settled into the race, by the start of lap 4 I was in P14 though it felt more like P16. In all honesty, I have no idea what happened, I just went backwards.
Race 1 performance, particularly the start, is a huge area of focus for me this season as I seek to improve my consistency which should see me improve my Championship performance overall. What happened over the remaining laps shows that I can pass and make places as I worked my way back up through the field to finish P11, back where I started.
While my finishing position may not reflect it, race 1 was amazing, with some really close battles against respectful drivers allowing just enough space and racing fairly, without resorting to pushing each other off track. Kudo here goes to Ben Stuart, Andy O'Donnell and James Aldridge, great racing against you all!
Race 2
As always, race 2 saw a reverse grid based on the finishing positions of race 1 with the top 15 spots reversing on the grid to even the field out. So position 5 on the grid for the start of race 2 and as per usual when changing karts, it's a great chance to have a quick nose round and try to figour out if you're kart is good or not. The first thing I noticed was 2 new tyres on the front of the kart so I was fairly sure that I'd have decent grip through the corners, apart from that, the engines weren't cutting out which is always a good thing!
The start of the race was hectic, Ben Stuart was on my inside on the grid and had a poor start allowing me to sneak up a place and crucially gain the inside line for the first big corner. With the drivers in P2 & P3 also starting poorly I was looking to move straight into P2 however a fast starting Giles Potter had an immense start, jumping from P6 to P2 on lap 1.
Coming into lap 2 I could tell I had a decent kart with no issues, but I could also see Andy O'Donnell pulling away in the lead and if I wanted a stab at the win I'd have to get a move on. Late on the brakes into the first hairpin gave me the pass I needed to take P2 from Giles and the hunt was on for the lead, but in my heart I knew it was never on as Andy just kept pulling away no matter how hard I pushed and how many risks I took.
By the end of the race, I remained in P2 which was a great result from P5 on the grid. What's more, I also took 3rd overall and with the absence of some familiar faces in Adam Delmont and Karl Parkin who both slept in, I now stand at the top of the Campionship! Result!
