Site last updated:
 15 April 2008

KH  Last weekend (18th/19th July) a 5-man team from the club completed the 24-Hour Diamond Endurance Race at Gladsmuir, near Edinburgh, in a field of 16 owner and 16 hire kart teams. Racing under the name of Trisys, the team consisted of Bram de Groot, Bob Hillier, Kam Ho, Louis Lazarus, and Dennis Sackett. We arrived on Friday afternoon for registration and a bit of practice before finding our B&Bs and going off for a curry and beers courtesy of Bram (hence the team name). Each hire team was given a brand new Biz ProKart and a can of chain lube for the race... the contents of our toolbox would not be needed after all! Our race strategy was to look after the kart and drive until the fuel was used up and then pit for fuel and a driver change. We anticipated doing 1½ hour stints, but discovered that the new karts had 160 c.c. engines rather than the 200 c.c. ones which have been more prevalent for the last couple of years, and so ended up doing 2¼ hour stints.

BG  Personally the whole thing for me was a complete eye-opener. I had no idea of the scale of such a meeting. We started well on the Friday evening with that great leg of lamb at the Nepalese, it must have been living near Sellafield as it was nearly as big as my left leg. We felt very confident of getting a top class result (NOT!) as all our competitors were either champions or past champions of this sort of event!!! It seemed that there was a competition between the owner drivers as to who had the most spare engines and tyres, it was like a wholesale engine and tyre place! Each team had been given their own pit bay in an area that is normally an indoor circuit, we were number 24, all the teams were busy decorating their pits with banners and all sorts, we tried the same by arranging our helmets and bags in some sort of a original set-up. Although not to be outdone by all the razzmatazz, I had two Trisys stick on signs with me for the side pods of the kart and of course we had a pit board with Trisys on. So with three of the team wearing a Trisys suit and the other 2 looking handsome and willing in matching orange and blue we were hopeful of a mention as best turned out team.

BH  My first 24-hour endurance race - very tiring both on and off the track but what a great experience, and although I was probably only there to make up the numbers, I did have two "claims to fame" during the event. The first is that I set the fastest qualifying lap for our team, with a time of 58.01 seconds. Kam, Louis and Dennis all came up with some lame excuse about the torrential rain that started just as I finished my stint having slowed them down a bit, but I think that was just sour grapes. Anyway, that blistering lap of mine converted into a grid position of 2^nd ...from last!!!

But all was not lost, when the race started our own Le Mans start specialist (Kam) blasted his way through the chaos at turn 1 and made up about 8 places by the end of the 1^st straight. He then set about the remainder of the field and gradually picked off places until the end of his stint. Louis and Dennis did likewise so that after 6 hours we were in 14^th place overall and looking good for a podium place in the hire kart class (trophies for the 1^st four places).

It was then my turn to do the business. The kart was performing well, the track was dry and full of grip, and I was feeling good knowing that we would probably go home with some sort of prize. So can anybody tell me, why, why, why did I go for that gap?

Yes, you guessed it, my second claim to fame is that I managed to turn a winning team into a bunch of mumbling, head shaking, dirt-kicking no hopers. The gap closed, I jumped the kerb, got sideways and the next kart round the bend took out my front offside wheel (it was actually the impact with the kerb that did it. ed.). After limping back to the pit lane, dodging the missiles coming from our pits and getting a new set of boots fitted to the front end, I finally emerged back on the track having lost 7 places and something like 5 laps.

The next 90 minutes felt like 90 years and it was with great trepidation that I pulled into the pits for the next refuelling stop and driver change (I was glad that Bram was next out - have you seen the size of him?). The guys were great about it though and after a few well chosen words from them, and much crawling on my part, it was agreed that the matter need not be brought up again until it came time to get the drinks/curries in.

BG  We all did two hour stints and when it came to my turn we had been as high as 14^th place. I did my best to keep up with the traffic but after a short while started to imagining things, surely these were not karts flashing by me I must be dreaming I thought, these guys were amazing. Any way I managed to hold my position 20^th in the race with 10 hours gone, when I got out of the kart I felt like I had just given birth to an oil-tanker with go faster stripes, I was dead!

BH  Darkness fell, karts thundered on, and the lap times kept falling. It was getting harder and harder to pull back places as everyone was getting into the groove. Through the night, first Bram, then Kam, Louis and Dennis all kept nibbling away at the rest of the pack and we were slowly climbing back up the leader board. We had expected to get around 90 minutes driving on full tanks, but these guys were stretching their sessions out to 2 - 2½ hours each. I’m sure they were trying to keep me away from the kart, but at last it was my turn again.

I was determined to make amends for the mess I made in the first stint so I eased my way onto the track and tried to stay out of trouble. But of course, five laps in, the red mist drops, I AM the best driver on the track, I CAN overtake anyone. I aim at the gap, floor the throttle and ..... these booming voices in my head scream "Stay OFF the kerbs. Don’t go for the gap - it WILL close". They were right, ease the throttle, take a line deep into the next turn and get the drop on him coming out of the bend while he is still wondering where you are. IT WORKED. I only had to unlap myself another 3 times now to get the place back.

I beetled on and got my lap times down into the 56s and actually managed to pull back a couple of places too. Just over 2 hours later I came back into the pits feeling great - Donald ducked, but great.

Bram went out for his second stint, so I headed for the car to get my head down. I had only dozed for an hour or so through the night and I need all the beauty sleep I can get!

KH  As 10 a.m. approached I went out for my 3^rd and final stint. We had been lucky with the weather so far as despite rain threatening just before the start of the race it had held off. 20 minutes later the rain started to fall. At first just a few drops on the visor, but then as the track gradually became wetter karts started to spin out and I started to overtake people who had previously been much faster than us.

BH  I woke some hours later to find the whole track awash, the rain that spoiled our qualifying session had returned with a vengeance. The race director deemed the race to be "wet", all the owner karts changed to wets, and they gave the hire teams the option of coming in and queuing up to have wets fitted to the wheels they were already using! Which was great until they ran out of tyres (no prizes for guessing which team still had slicks).

So there we were, more than 3 hours still to go and loosing 5 - 10 seconds a lap to the karts fitted with wets. Despite a valiant effort by Louis during the last 2 hours (creep creep) we kept on losing places, and when the chequered flag finally dropped we were back in 18^th place.

KH  We would have finished about 6^th in class and 16^th overall had it not been for our final major incident. Dennis and I were watching the monitors and had decided that despite our tyre handicap costing us about 5 seconds a lap in the wet the next team behind us did not have sufficient time left to catch Louis. Suddenly we dropped positions as Louis decided to try a bit of off-roading and then took about 2 minutes to get the kart back onto the track.

BH  Of the 32 teams competing, only one owner/driver team didn’t make the full 24 hours, and apart for a few scrapes and bruises from excursions onto the green stuff, none of the 130-odd competitors sustained any injuries. Both the karts and the standard of driving were excellent making it a memorable weekend, and although we didn’t come away with any prizes, we all agreed that it had been great fun and, apart for the fiasco with the wets, very well organised. Can’t wait for the next one.

BG  Bob’s wife had brought the local sweet shop with her so we kept up the high calorie intake with an amazing choice of cakes and chocolates. Finally I thought the whole event was brilliant, nice people, good kart, good circuit. Roll-on next year when we will show them a thing or two, we will have banners matching suits, the kart will be decorated like the they have never seen before.

Thanks for the invite, count me in for next year. I have typed this with my left foot as I still can't use my arms and hands !

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