Site last updated:
 15 April 2008

Whilton Mill 2 hour Endurance Races - Cost = £90 + VAT per TEAM, next dates are Monday 27th Jan , Monday 24th Feb,, Monday 24th March. Driver Registration 18:00

 Winners get some decent champagne and T shirts.

 Race Report from Whilton Mill - Monday 16th - 2 hour Endurance

 Team entered as ANKC and consisted of myself, Rick Cronin, and Kam Ho. We each did a 1 x 40 minute drive

 Driving conditions were interesting to say the least, the heavy downpour all day made the track very slippery, although it had all but stopped when we arrived. The track stayed wet all through the race, with a few small areas of less wet racing line !

 This was my first time at Whilton Mill and my huge bloatie boy weight coupled with my remarkable driving ability in the rain made for an enjoyable race !

 Practice was 3 laps of the circuit, with qualifying grid positions randomly drawn,

 We were lucky to start in 2nd position, however when the lights went green, and I tried to accelerate, the engine all but stalled on the line, with at least 4 Karts going past me before the engine came to life. (that excuse worked for Damon Hill so I thought I would give it a try)

 Within a few laps I had carved my way to the front, and was chugging around nicely, finding extreme amounts of grip and extending a massive lead, when some how some one caught me up and squeezed past me .. hmm ?? I was most shocked and had to speed up a bit more. After our driver change we were about 30 seconds behind the leader, Rick was closing nicely when the drive belt snapped on our Kart !!! luckily he was able to coast into the pits. However we lost about 1 minute, ( only dropped to 3rd ).

 Basically after our last driver change - and with Kam Ho in the hot seat, we were 20 seconds of the leader and 20 seconds in front of the 3rd place team, and they both had further driver changes to make.

 All looked good for an exciting finish, when the race director summoned the ANKC team, (what had we done we wondered ! ) We were informed that there was a mechanical problem with our kart, they could not be sure, but they thought the rear wheel nut was coming off, as there was a rather dodgy sound emanating from the rear wheel ! .. solution would be to come in and check it out !!! we decided that the risk to Kam's Life was acceptable in the pursuit of glory, so he stayed out oblivious to the danger !

 The other teams did their driver change, and suddenly we were 3 seconds behind the leader !! Kam was much faster than the guy in front, but was unable to overtake due to the conditions, and the very smooth ( but slow) driving of the leader. Kam made a desperate bid to overtake and spun off, but within a couple of laps made up all lost ground !

 Kam nearly snatched it on the line by diving down the outside off the last bend, but it was not to be !

 We may not have won the race, but we were first to the bar ! all a question of priorities if you ask me !

 This was my first time at Whilton Mill, neither Kam nor Rick are regulars to Whilton Mill and we managed a 2nd place finish, the upshot of this mail is .. we want to enter more teams into the next race, if you are interested, let me know and I will help organise some team entries.

 Ray Trapnell

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