The Club's Results

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)