And so it begins..

Wednesday 25^th January 2012

Received an Email from Ben Hershbein at Teamsport today, stating that all 14 positions for Round One of Chase the Ace are filled, which should make for an interesting race, and hopefully the usual high standard of driving will remain. Favourite for the win still has to be last year’s ‘Ace’ Luke John.

Tuesday 31^st January 2012

Between New Year and now, Id been trying a lot to bring down my overall weight a little, as although for the BRKC I’m required to weigh 90kg kitted up to classify as a Heavyweight (Therefore being able to score points separate from the overall championship where heavier drivers are at a disadvantage) I wanted to give myself as much chance as possible of beating the miniscule Luke John, as I felt that although our pace is usually similar, I was giving abit too much away to him in the early stages of previous races as the karts are fully fuelled, allowing him to build about a half a lap lead before things settled down. By the time the first race came around, I wanted to be sure I was as fit and race ready as possible, and then it would just be a case of managing my weight to fit around both series. Combining core exercises, upper body strengthening and aerobic fitness training as of race day I currently weigh 90.6kg (kitted up), which I'm pretty satisfied with even though I feel I could still get it down abit. Giving up the bacon rolls is proving hard to do!

Wednesday 1^st February

Surprise, surprise, another victory for the untouchable Luke John last night, although series newcomer Dan Morris ran him extremely close for the whole race, only losing out a little whilst passing backmarkers. I managed to finish in fourth place, around 25secs from the winner but only around 3 secs behind third place man Gergely Szalontai, who I had been catching hand over first over the last fifteen minutes of the race.

Round One saw 11 driver entries, with a blend of familiar faces and some new blood, and from the get go you could tell that the racing was going to be close. Qualifying was the usual mixed bag of results, with only one lap to get it right in an unfamiliar kart, there’s always usually a few surprises. This time it was young Chris Wollen setting the pace on his debut, storming to pole ahead of Dan Morris, with Luke John in 3^rd. I qualified a lowly 7^th, having not gotten the best out of the kart in the quali shootout, but was confident of having a good race as the kart I would be using had felt good in the warm up. What I didn’t know was that things were going to get a lot worse before they got better...

From seventh on the grid, I made a good clean start and immediately got passed Andy Taylor (who I usually end up sharing the track with at some point in these races) then gained another place going under the flyover into the second right-hander. Because I had started on the ‘inside’ line and had gone through the first right hand corner, I emerged on the outside for the next left. As we headed toward this corner, I braked slightly to avoid the guy in front, but when I did the engine momentarily cut out, long enough for me to raise my hand to signal that there was problem. As this happened the entire field went up the inside of me, leaving me dead last. Before the nearest marshal had realised what had happened, I tried the accelerator again and the engine spluttered to life. I was away again but a long way from the back of the pack.

After maybe five laps, the yellow flags were out as a driver had spun on the flyover, which grouped the field slightly and allowed me to make up a place, and from then it was a case of getting my head down. Shortly after the red lights were on, signalling for all drivers to stop. The timing sensor had stopped working on my kart, which resulted in a couple of my laps not registering. A quick fix was required, and I was fortunate in that I had to drive about ten metres down the track over the finish line in order for the guys in race control to check everything was ok. They didn’t seem to mind me gaining so much space, but I was happy to be a little closer to the guy in front, my nemesis Andy Taylor.

After a few laps I was starting to think about where I could attempt an overtake, when right in front of me Andy half spun coming off the flyover. I was so close I was unable to completely avoid him, and gave the back of his kart a light tap as I went past. If Id been any closer I would have had one of those ‘sucked in to the accident’ moments which would have completely screwed my race, but as it was I didn’t lose any time, and Andy even admitted after that the tap had actually stopped him going into the tyres completely!

A new rule introduced for this season was a mandatory 30 second pit stop for each driver, which brought about an element of tactical play and also allowed you an opportunity to get a bit of free space, should you be stuck behind a slower car, for example. Each driver simply had to drive into the pits, from where a stopwatch would be started for thirty seconds, come to a complete stop then go as soon as the marshal signalled the time was up. The only rule that would be applied would be if a driver left their stop until the last 15mins when a board is shown from the flag box, a driver would have to pit on that lap.

A lot of the front runners made their stops between laps 20 and 30, which meant with the passes I had already made, I was actually up into first place, where I remained for around 12 laps before my own stop. The last driver I had overtaken on track, newcomer Darren Pearce, was keeping me close company behind when he pitted around lap 35. I new he must have pitted because you can usually hear the kart behind locking its wheels or thumping a tyre barrier and as I went around the tight hairpin at the bottom of the track, a quick glance over to the pits confirmed he was in for his mandatory stop.

Due to the length of the lap and the nature of the circuit at Avonmouth, it’s quite easy to follow the progress of other drivers around the track, and as I emerged from the flyover I could see that Darren was at the end of the main straight, entering the fast right hander at the bottom of the circuit. All I had to do to decide when to pit was to judge whether the gap was getting bigger or smaller. As it was after around five laps I could see that Id taken a bit of time out of him, so decided to head in to the pits safe in the knowledge I had a big enough gap back to him. Nevertheless, he must have put in a hot lap whilst I pitted because he was right on me again when I emerged from the pit exit.

After everyone had made their stops, the race settled down with less overtaking as we approached the final fifteen minutes. I had a bit of moment whilst lapping backmarker Andy Frankham, and I must have passed hot shot newcomer Chris Wollen too at some point (he ended the race in sixth place) but other than that it was pretty quiet until I noticed that I was starting to creep up on the famous yellow helmet of Gergely Szalontai, who was having a quiet race in third some fifteen seconds off the leaders. As the fifteen minute countdown board went out, I knew I had the pace to catch Gergely, so I set off in pursuit.

Lap after lap I could see the gap getting smaller, and I hoped he would perhaps get stuck behind a backmarker and allow me a shot at overtaking him in the closing stages. As it was, we seemed to have the track to ourselves as the race got into the closing laps. On lap 72 I dropped into the 33’s as the fuel in the kart ran down, and on lap 76 I set my fastest lap, a 33.370, and was really eating into Gergely’s lead when, two laps later, the chequered flag came out, signalling the end of the race and another victory for Luke ‘The Ace’ John.

I felt pretty confident that given another five laps or so I would have been able to pass Gergely and claim the final podium spot, but as it was the setback right at the beginning probably cost me the chance in the end, with the race winner eventually finishing around 25secs ahead of us. Overall I was pretty satisfied with my performance; having not made any mistakes, and was already looking forward to Round 2, where my battles with Andy, Darren and Gergely would resume. I was getting ready for my first ever outdoor night race for Round 3 of BRKC 2012, so March was shaping up to be a good month of karting!