Site last updated:
 15 April 2008

A Sluggard's view:-

Andy Lawrence started for us from 4th on the grid but Andy, initially had his problems coming to terms with the track and dropped back to 9th. Three teams had got clear of the pack with everyone else being held up by a certain gentleman in a green and blue suit (Come in Ray Trapnell, was the chorus from the crowd). For lap after lap the train of karts went round and round until eventually, the teams behind decided to create their own excitement with Andy and Phil Jones helping Colin Munford to perform a half-roll with twist. Luckily Colin landed on his head and escaped with a scrape to his left arm.

The grid was reformed for the restart with Ray at the front with race leader, Louis Lazarus and the second and third teams at the back. Ray proceeded with his demonstration of how to stop people getting past. Andy was making his way back up the field but at one point was judged to be over-assertive and picked up our first stop-go penalty.

There was a huge cheer from on and off the track when Ray was finally called in. By this time we had sent Simon Hare out and he was making good progress and we had recovered to 5th place by the time Jo Jones went out. Jo had a good drive but was clearly getting tired towards the end of her stint. Jo came in for the first refuelling and wanted to change then but the rules meant that we had to send her out for another lap first. Disaster! Another team came in for a driver change ahead of Jo and with another kart already in for refuelling, we tried to wave to Jo to go round again but to no avail. We had broken the pit rule. As I drove away I hoped that the marshals had been too pre-occupied with the refuelling stops to notice and for a while it seemed we had got away with it. However, the marshals waited until they had finished all the refuelling stops before dishing out our second stop-go penalty.

Soon into my first stint, Kam Ho went past me whilst I was still learning the lines then later on I sensed another quicker driver was breathing down my neck. By this time, I had a much better idea of how to apply the Ray technique of defensive driving and 1 was able to hold him off for many laps before I made an error and lost out. I was less upset by this when I realised that it was Louis that I had been holding up. Another quick driver started to attack but after I had squeezed them out of the final turn rather forcefully, it was the other guy who got black flagged (apologies to whoever it was, I think you were hard done by).

Simon went out and put in another flying stint then Jo went out again. Half-way through Jo was called in for the second refuelling stop and was told that the left front tyre was balding, would she like it changed now or wait for it to pop. Jo elected to keep going but it was only another couple of laps before she was in again to have the wheel changed. This shouldn't have lost us much time as we had already decided to put in an extra driver change to allow Jo a breather before she did a third stint, but there was a problem fitting the new wheel and we eventually lost over two minutes. This dropped us back to 9th, over four laps down on the competition.

Andy went out for his second stint and this time really enjoyed himself. By this time we were well out of contention but gradually, gradually the four lap gap was closed to first three laps then two. I went out for the last twenty minutes and in the cooling evening could feel that the kart was going much more quickly. My progress was held up for a long time by Team 7 and I being harassed in turn by Jody Stanton so I was having to protect my rear as well as trying to find a way past. We both got past eventually and I was having a hard time keeping Jody out, including me closing the door through the sweeping right-hander at the back of the circuit with rather less courtesy than was strictly called for (sorry, Jody). Anyway, that was the way it finished.

The best prize of the evening went to Louis who picked up an invite from Bram de Groot (who showed Ray that being big and heavy is not an excuse for being slow on this circuit) to be a replacement driver for Trisys in the Group 3 & 4 round of the Challenge '97 series at Buckmore Park. I now expect Trisys to win this round, as Louis will be able to make use of his experience driving for the ANKC team on the same track in the previous week.

I think this was a very successful evening and should be repeated regularly (next year?).

Stuart (Team Captain, Sluggards).

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