As the comp sec mentioned a while ago the charity kart race at Aldershot did a Rally of Kent and got postponed due to a lack of entries. Anyway the new event moved on to Sandown Park and attracted 13 teams, including one from some obscure North Kent motor club, Sixtrees and region or something like that. I was to join those two coastal types Mr Spin and the Egg man (aka Ross Saville and Darren Russell) and had invited along Spiderman (Rob from Oxford) to make a team of four. All good fun except one thing, I was out freezing my tail off marshalling on the Kent the night before. I managed to get home in time to catch an hour’s worth of tourism in the land of nod before heading off to the Kart track.
My mate Rob (Spiderman) had come down from Oxford to fill the void left as a certain Comp Sec had wimped out of doing anything but sleep after the Kent. The old biddies’ team (Oi less of the Old if you please – The Ed) that was to enter the last event couldn’t give up that much time and are probably past it anyway (this is a deliberate taunt to get you to take us on). So we only had one team.
We arrived at the circuit and found Darren and Ross had beaten us there and they had walked the course “very quickly” apparently. During the briefing we noticed that a lot of drivers had their own kit and we were a bit concerned (well I was after all that taunting!) that we would be a bit slow and not make a good account of ourselves. Ross warned us that the “in” corner after the straight had a very damp/wet bit just where it looked like you wanted to be braking.
Qualifying
was a half hour open session, which we had to split between ourselves equally.
The last driver to qualify would start the race, Ross having the dimensions
and weight of a leprechaun decided he wanted to start as his small size
would give him an advantage off the line. Rob went out for his 7 and a
bit minutes first and put up a rather decent time, good enough in fact
to put us top of the time sheet. Next up it was my turn and I went out
and found that the damp raking zone was not much of a problem as the corner
was totally flat, very wide and the layout of the track made it perfect
for overtaking. It’s rather like the run out of the Ascari chicane at Monza,
a long blast into a Parabolica style corner but flat so maybe more like
the one at Mexico City. You could pick up a nice tow and slipstream right
up to a Kart in front and 
do
them round the outside, mega stuff. I had a couple of spins in practice
– as you should, it’s what practice is for – finding the limit. I didn’t
feel very quick and I came into the pits to see Rob looking a bit put out,
so I thought I had gone really badly. He called me a rude word and said
on my last flying lap I had gone two tenths quicker than his time and put
us even more firmly on pole. (Smug mode!). Darren went out and we stayed
top, as it was when Ross went for his laps. But with only seconds left
in the session Team Sevenoaks Motor Club (with a spare Ecurie Purbrick
member) were bumped off the top spot by a midget in a Silver helmet. And
three others went and did the same. Ross looked a little surprised to see
so many karts line up in front of him.
Off the start and the boy Saville snatched fourth (at least I think he did) and started circulating, quarter of an hour later Spiderman jumped in and kept our good pace going. With half an hour of the race gone I jumped aboard and went haring off. On the exit of a left hand corner about halfway round the track, a pool of water had been dragged across the racing line and it hadn’t been there in practice so I approached on the ideal line straight through the wet stuff and lost it. And did it the next lap as well. I was driving like Ross at a soggy North Weald, a few quick laps and another rotation this time to mow the lawn. And spread some mud about the place. Not good, after that I got it together and got into a bit of a ding dong with another chap. All too soon it was time for Darren to have his stint.
The fuel stops started during Ross’s second stint and during the stops we climbed to second but were dumped to fifth after both our tanks were filled.
Good stints by Ross and Rob put us back up to fourth and we were in the hunt for third. My next stint I put in another silly spin early on and then got a whiff of third and went hunting,
However my earlier spin had got me mixing it with a fairly quick fellow who I had a monumental dice with and he ended up ramming me into the mud again, whether it was intentional or not I’m not sure but I doubt it was. He probably didn’t see me putting a move on him. I think we lost third there but after Darren’s final stint to take the flag we were only 11 seconds short. A spin too far perhaps? Still I’m pleased we didn’t get our overalls covered in stinking Cava. There’s another event coming up in the autumn so come on then how about a three way scrap for the honours, our young guns team vs. the flat caps vs. the fairer sex. Bring it on!!