With names like The Mow Karters, Desperate Dan and Odd Balls, you could be forgiven for thinking that the teams who turned out on 15^th February were not taking things seriously.  Not true on the track though, nor even on the chat thread where some personal and inter-club rivalry was clearly building before race day.

Essex Karting were efficient at getting people kitted out and quickly through their safety briefing, stressing that this is a non-contact sport.  Within minutes of arriving, drivers were out practicing on a very slippery indoor circuit.

Surprisingly, there was no qualifying session and the teams were gridded up simply in the order they appeared on my team sheet.  To be strictly accurate, this was the order in which I received cheques through the letterbox – a little lesson for the future maybe?

The Rayleigh circuit has a very tight hairpin at the end of its longest straight and a complex of three consecutive tight bends, plus a couple of wider turns with room to drift.  It doesn’t present many easy opportunities for overtaking, especially without contact.  Amazingly, there were very few yellow flag incidents and we were complimented for driving skills, lap times and number of laps completed in the 2 hours by the race director.

After 35 minutes, CMC, who started 9^th were up into 4^th place where they stayed for the rest of the race.  All of the other teams had moved up or down by a couple of places so passing was clearly possible although at least one team had been called into the pits for a 30 second contact penalty by then.

After an hour, the first three teams had neatly reversed their positions to 3,2,1 but with fuel stops taking place randomly, it was impossible to judge true race positions. At 90 minutes into the race, the top three had all swapped round again and there were some stirrings among the lower orders.

The easiest way to overtake at these events is to wait for other karts to spin or crash and then glide serenely past.  For impatient types, the next best was to get very close through the slower bends and plant yourself on the inside at the end of one of the short straights, thereby forcing the leading kart to go wide.  This inevitably caused some contact but usually gently enough to escape penalty.

At the end of the race, with a mind boggling 256 laps completed, Class Act lived up to their name, followed by Odd Balls and Borough 19 (who had started 7^th) close behind in third place.

It was a most enjoyable evening and one that I would certainly like to repeat.  If you would like a rematch at Streatham and/or Buckmore Park drop me an email on bob.bradbury@gerling.co.uk or post something in the karting thread in the chat forum on the club’s website.