The Club's Results

In an attempt to get to grips with my kart (having never driven a proper outdoor one before), I decided to find out where the limits were, and thus spent very little time actually pointing in the direction of travel. Incidentally this is a much more amusing way of driving than normal and I'd recommend it to anyone, although it isn't very fast.

After one particularly low friction incident, I found all four wheels off the track, which is an instant black flag offence (the first one of the day, no less). This left me just about dead last, which is a shame as I'd overtaken a few people and think I was about fourth at the time.

Starting from the back was plenty of fun though and I made it back up to eighth in the remaining time, and had recorded the fourth best lap time up to that point. More importantly, I was beginning to get to grips with the kart, though not the steering wheel as I had worn too many pairs of gloves and suffered novice death grip in the latter stages (subsequent experimentation revealed that it was hard work just to bend the fingers, let alone hold anything whilst wearing three pairs). (RTT)

Going off at the front and with Bummers starting behind me I felt the need to make use of the space and get him off my arse. The tactic proved to be a good one, and in the second lap I completed my first lapping of a backmarker. Looking back afterwards I thought I saw Andy getting past too, and so drove hard for a further two laps before realising I was in isolation (it hadn't been him at all).

Since by now my karting prowess was beginning to emerge, I decided to concentrate on drifting round the corners instead of trying to take the fastest route. This was lots of fun and involved plenty of sawing on the wheel, though somehow I never quite span. It is a bit hard to do when there are other people on the racing line though, so I did get warned for bumping at one point - it's a shame that contact is frowned upon as karting bumps would be awesome I think.

Upon completion of the race I was extremely pleased with my spectacularly un-Peckish printout of lap times which showed almost none anywhere near the mean. (RTT)

My best result of the evening was fending off the shots... Photographic evidence appears to suggest I was sufficiently discouraging that you only bought me 4. Result.
In the poker I think I won just one hand. All brilliant fun though! (Martin P)

Tip: two-engined carts are considerably slower if one engine stalls due to the cold. This happened to me twice during this race! (Dubya)

Hard work starting from the back of the grid but turned out ok in the end. (Dubya)

A good start from eighth saw me about five seconds clear by the end of the third lap. Then disaster - my glasses steamed up (this was the first time I've raced with them) and I could barely see.

I backed off in order to stay on the track and negotiated the back markers with care, but had misjudged how slowly I could go as Martin overtook me on the penultimate lap. Fortunately I was able to repass out of the same corner, but then another misjudgement overtaking a back marker at the end of the last lap allowed Martin to retake the lead. (JPD)

Racing without glasses this time, I had a steady first two laps but then got into the groove on the third. Then disaster - black flag! Keith (2nd), Ingram (5th) and I (3rd) all went into the pits, to be told that we hadn't stopped racing under a yellow flag. This took ages, and we lost about 80 seconds.

Apparently Martin (1st) stopped on the next lap, but lost significantly less time and was about 30 seconds ahead, whilst Glass (4th) was pulled in later and was well back.

Having dealt with Keith and Chris (who for some reason was told to overtake us whilst stopped), I got in some quick laps but had no idea how I was doing.

It was disappointing to miss out on what would have surely been a great race with Martin at the front, but otherwise it was nice to be back in a reasonable kart on a good track, and at least I was able to get the fastest lap :-) (JPD)

My big mistake was to give all my chips to Neil quite early on. I had somehow convinced myself that I had a 4H when in fact I had 3H. This was the difference between a straight and... nothing. Oops!!

At least I won something back later in the evening ;) (Dubya)

Needless to say, the gentle sweeping 1st turn of the 1st race saw the 1st pile-up of the afternoon. I was last to get going again - quite a bit to do to get into the top-half of the finish order.

I climbed in Peckish fashion into 2nd place by lap 6. Unknown to me at the time, there was only JPD ahead. With about 3 laps to go I had caught him up - and soon deduced who it was and that this was the battle for the race lead. I attempted to surprise him with an ugly attempt to barge past on the entry into turn 5, but was soon out of control and unsurprisingly found him retaking 1st place on the run down to turn 6.

The following two laps were punch for punch, with me repeatedly closing up only for small mistakes to set me back 3 or 4 lengths again.

The stalemate was broken when, on the approach to the penultimate corner, we came up to a back-marker (Judging from the results, this was Amit). JPD dived to the outside, I dived to the inside. The tortuous Turn 10 hairpin was taken 3-abreast, but with the shortest path and Amit's kart holding me on my line, I pushed ahead and survived the final corner to win by a margin of 1 second. (Martin P)

A suitably controversial race...!

The grid was set by interleaving the top half of the finish orders from the two heats. Keith (my manager from work), with the fastest lap so far was given pole.

The first three laps were cracking. A terrific procession saw Keith, myself and JPD inching ahead of Jon Glass in 4th. I felt good and identified two corners on the track where I had the better of Keith.

The 2nd lap had a peculiar section where yellow flags were out, despite no sign of any incident. However, Keith did not slow as he should - and there was no way I was going to slow down and let him drive away!!!!

On the following lap I duly got past Keith out of turn 5 (I think) and held 1st place for the rest of the lap, knowing JPD would not be far behind... what a race...!!

However, it was ruined when the umpires took the difficult but understandable decision to Black Flag the top 6 drivers for not slowing during the yellow flag! In the confusion, and not wishing to throw away the lead if I had misunderstood, I elected to stay out for another lap to be sure. That decision luckily served me well, as the post-race data showed that I was kept in the pits for less long than the rest.

The rest of the race was exciting for the spectators, but rather unexciting and confusing for those of us driving. I re-emerged in 8th (i.e. ahead of Keith and JPD), and steadily worked my way up the field with a string of 8 tidy laps averaging 1:14.9. As the race neared its conclusion, one last kart came into view and I pushed hard to reach it - overtaking John Darcy on the final corner of the final lap to win by 1.5s. (Martin P)

Given how much I spun (purely due to not knowing the car and track, you understand... ;-) you all really should have done better!! :-D (Anything to do with being short)

See above! (Anything to do with being short)

I started near the back of this race, but some determined efforts to warm my tyres on the formation lap seemed to pay dividends and I passed perhaps half the field skirting a pile-up on the first corner.

I passed a few more people and may briefly have led, before I was passed by Keith on the uphill drag from turn #8, from where I struggled to hold onto him. I had a good tussle with Clive for 2nd place in the closing laps until, lying 2nd with a lap to go, I was the victim of a bit of metal braking into turn #10 and Clive passed me for 2nd. (Jon)

As unmitigated disasters go, this was surprisingly enjoyable. Martin has already explained the circumstances of the black flagging, so I won't add to that. I got the longest stop of anyone, having not understood the waving and pointing efforts of the marshals to indicate that all of the leading cars were to stop, meaning I came in two laps later. The second half of the race was great fun as I struggled to make up lost time, however I then got bogged down behind a rather 'determined' backmarker and my lap times suffered accordingly.

Certainly I was beaten for pace by the three cars ahead of me on the starting grid. On a different day, I'd have hoped to remain 4th. JPD's fastest lap is particularly impressive for the fact that he's not a great deal lighter than me, so I can't have any excuses there. (Jon)

Better lucky than good - ching ching! (Neil T)

I found my starting table played conservatively and a little unpredictably which, combined with below average cards and very below average play for the first hour or so, left me briefly well down on chips. However, some good play and good luck put me back on track and by the time we were down to the last eight, I was in the middle of the pack.

At the final table I started with a poor set of cards, so sat out most hands as Neil and Simon accounted for everyone else. This left me dangerously short-stacked, but I then had two reasonable hands which allowed me to get roughly back on terms.

A third above average hand prompted me to go all-in pre-flop, which Neil called for a showdown. I was marginal favourite at that stage, but Neil hit a pair to knock me out for third place.

Many thanks to Dubya and Martin for organising a great day out, hopefully we can make it a regular occurrence (I mean karting and poker, not Martin getting married...) (JPD)

As usual, my best results came early on from my rather unorthodox style of bidding without actually looking at my cards. Briefly this left me with more than the starting number of chips, but having switched to looking at my cards I then started to do much worse. It began with losing a large number of chips to Kernigit when he beat my ace high flush with a straight flush, and continued through two buy-ins to the point where I was looking dangerously close to being unable to fund the next round of blinds, so I went all in and lost for the third time. Majestic.

Cheers to Martin for the most ludicrously complicated poker system I have ever seen, which provided plenty of entertainment in itself. In case anyone ever wants to copy it, you are looking to arrange for the blinds to increase logarithmically in linear time. Apparently there is a "very configurable" program that enables you to do this. The debate about whether Martin actually downloaded this or spent three weeks of company time writing it continues to rage.

Also I thought the official title for the evening was the "Dubya Poker Stars 2009" or something like that? (RTT)

Turns out these karts have two engines. Sadly I didn't know this, so chugged round slowly for the entire first race not realising one of mine wasn't working, thereby explaining why everyone else left me for dead after every corner.

I should probably also apologise to John Earl who got the same kart in the second qualifying race, and though he did at least realise there was a problem and come into the pits to change, it cost us both a place in the 'A' final. (Neil T)

Now having two functioning engines, this race went somewhat better. Tom pulled away by around 1.5 seconds per lap and deserved to win, but second place was reasonably satisfactory, especially as I managed not to spin. Still, it would have been nice to come first, as I was a no-hoper for the evening's poker tournament. (Neil T)

Clammed up for a headwind which didn't materialise. As a result the rate was much higher than I expected, maybe around 34. I've no way of telling if this is good or bad, but I got a lot of work down and it was pretty consistent. The result may or may not inspire me to take up sculling again. (Tom C)