CKC - Round 4 - Whilton Mill

After 4 months of waiting, CKC is finally back. For a recap, last time out in Rowrah I finished 7th in the final and am now 9th in the championship. Now, due to COVID – 19, we have skipped round 2 and 3 and are now at Whilton Mill for round four.

As I had never been to Whilton before on Saturday I was going at my own pace and luckily, my own pace was only a second or two off the fast boys that practically lived there. Over the day I got faster and faster and in the end, I managed to gain a second against my first session. This meant that I had a good chance for Sunday…

Practice

In the 12 minute practice, the next day I was following my teammates, therefore, set my PB of a 53.00 however I knew I could still go faster.

Qualifying

In qualifying, I tried to go out behind the faster drivers but I only managed to get out behind one of the slower ones that were half a second slower than me. This slowed me down therefore I qualified 11th… Luckily the driver next to me was my teammate and so were the two drivers behind.

https://results.alphatiming.co.uk/cadetkartchamp/2020/4/s/69/

Heat 1

In the first heat, I got a good run off the line and jumped up to 9th. I was all over the back of the kart in front all lap until I had a bad run into the last section of the track and got overtaken on the short straight into the boot (last 4 corners). Then on the third-to-last corner, I got spun around and fell back to 25th of 27 and had some catching up to do.

Luckily for me, the next 5 drivers ahead were all together in a pack and as soon as I caught up to one of them I got straight past ASAP. As they were about a second slower than me per lap they were quite easy to catch up and get past. I got past them all with 3 laps to spare, sadly I was too far behind to catch up to 19th so I finished in 20th.

https://results.alphatiming.co.uk/cadetkartchamp/2020/4/s/70/

Heat 2

Due to the disappointment of heat 1, in the second heat, I was starting 20th. On lap one I cleared the slower drivers and got up to 16th. I was now trying to catch the karts with even pace to me that were in front of me. This was easy because the drivers ahead were fighting amongst themselves which gave me time to catch up to them.

After two laps of being behind, I pounced on a mistake and I got past a bit of fighting. I was now on the second one of four. We were working together as we noticed that the more we fought the more the driver ahead got away. We worked together for a lap or two and managed to get past, then the fight was on. Me and Tom (https://www.instagram.com/teholden08/ ) began to fight. Unluckily, I came out behind in 10th place which isn’t bad considering I started 20th.

https://results.alphatiming.co.uk/cadetkartchamp/2020/4/s/71/

Heat 3

Going into the final heat I got told I was starting 9th as a driver ahead had a penalty for track limits. Off the start, I jumped up to eighth but going to the first braking zone, was on the back of one of the drivers with a bad reputation of hitting other karts off the track. Stupidly, I decided to go for the overtake, and you guessed it, he hit me off and I nearly flipped over! Even worse, after he span me around and lost a load of places he cut across an access road and jumped back up to the front! I was then at the back of the grid again. This time I was only close enough to get back up to 18th.

https://results.alphatiming.co.uk/cadetkartchamp/2020/4/s/72/

Final

In the final, I was starting an average of 16th. When going around for the rolling lap the plug on my engine for my oil came out and when sitting on the grid oil was spewing everywhere. I thought it was over until Ross ( https://www.facebook.com/roscomeara ) came over and offered his help re-filling the oil and getting me a plug for the engine. Thanks to his help I was allowed to start the race one the oil had dried up.

On the first two laps, I gained two places and then I gained a further two, two laps later. I was now in tenth and was fighting with Tom Holden for the rest of the race. On lap 10 I got past but he got me back one lap later on lap 11 of 15. As we were fighting the driver behind was gaining and gaining more and more every lap. I didn’t pay attention to him as I didn’t think he was close enough to catch up and get past. We kept on fighting until the last lap when I ran wide on a corner and fell back. I thought I had finished 10th until about half an hour after the race finished when I realised that I had actually finished 9th because someone had crashed on the last lap.

https://results.alphatiming.co.uk/cadetkartchamp/2020/4/s/73/