Kimbolton race report

Sunday 12th October saw my first meeting at Kimbolton and it turned out to be a bit of an adventure!
Saturday I tested with Chris Kasch and had the excellent help of former Brunswick employee Richard Oakervee on engineer's duty.

The test started off well with the 2nd session showing a time 2 tenths quicker than last months PB but I was sure more was to come.
Unfortunately in the 3rd I got knocked off by an over enthusiastic competitor who thought we were racing, not testing - this knocked my confidence a little and the rest of the day was spent chasing my tail as I struggled to set the kart up.

A decent nights sleep gave me a fresh outlook for race day and the first race started well with me posting a best lap some half a second quicker than the previous day and 7 tenths quicker than last month but I was suffering from a lack of confidence on the brakes so a new pair of pads were purchased from Spellfame.

The second race was a real confidence boost and after picking my way through the usual carnage I got some free space and set a new PB some 2 tenths quicker than my previous race time - a full 9 tenths quicker than last months time, Chris had set me a target of slicing a second off, I was almost there!

The third race got underway and I realised that my brakes felt much sharper than before, we had adjusted the brake pedal so I had more bite but hadn't taken into account the extra grip from the new pads so every time I braked the wheels locked, as usual I drove around the problem to post a respectable time a few tenths slower than the previous race.

In the final I had qualified 14th from 17, not too shabby considering I had to start from 17th in the 3 qualifying heats and i'd beaten several regular TKM drivers.
I tried to keep my head in the final and make sure I get a solid finish so I would recieve another upgrade signature for my license, I was running around 10th and capitalising on others mistakes when I clipped a kerb slightly too hard and I lost a couple of places during the resulting slide, I finished a good 12th posting the same laptime as my previous race.

Overall I was very pleased and got my third upgrade signature, only 3 more to go before I am no longer called a novice!

An onboard video of the third heat can be viewed on the right hand side of the blog, if you listen carefully you can make out the brakes locking even on the warm up lap - it certainly focused the mind at 70mph on the main straight!