Race Report Easykart 2012 Round 5 - Forest Edge

After the trials and tribulations of the last time out at LLandow both Bailey and I were hoping for a clean and trouble free weekend at our closest circuit, Forest Edge.  Despite this not being our favourite track on the calendar (ok, we both quite dislike this track) we were still hopeful of a positive result heading in to the weekend.  We had planned a test here but due to the damage sustained at LLandow this was not possible so we knew the Saturday would be vital to a good weekend.  We have had one run here in the past two years ago in Cadet and to be fair, it was a very bad weekend!

Saturday testing arrived and so did the rain.  The track was more a lake really but Bailey wanted to get out for the first session anyway so I found him a snorkel and some paddles and he did seem to be enjoying himself.  When he came in he was complaining about the brakes, so I checked the pads, bit glazed, so I rubbed them down and refitted them; this didn’t appear to help.  I asked Barnaby if he could assist me in bleeding the brakes and he discovered that a seal had gone and the master cylinder needed a service, which he did for me (Thanks Matey!)

As the day draw onward's the rain eased and the track started drying.  We managed a couple of dry sessions at the end of the day, one of which was fully dry and Bailey seemed to be on the pace despite having no real dry setup so it could be a good weekend.

Sunday arrived and I could tell straight away that Bailey was too tense.  The delay in the morning didn’t help and he was pacing around in circles like stressed tiger waiting for his meal.  All attempts to chill him down failed and this tension was not good before Quali….

Qualifying didn’t go to plan, I still didn’t get the weights right so he was nearly 2kg over at the end of the session and due to the large (30 karters, the largest ever Jnr ever in Easykart this year!) it was very hard to find and gap big enough to string a couple of hot laps together.  Bailey still managed p16 (off 30) so not a bad effort but he was disappointed and hoped for more.

This set the tone for the day really.  We(I) went too low on pressures for the first heat and Bailey struggled badly on the opening laps, losing out to 11 places, some of them cheaply.  He then settled down and made up a few but he seems to lack confidence that had been displayed so well at Llandow. Nikki and myself waited for Bailey to calm down (he was not happy) before discussing the pressures mistake (too low, my bad) and Nikki offered some defensive driving techniques. (cheers buddy!)  

As the day progressed Bailey improved and despite complaining of under-steer all day he managed to move up the field a little in each session, in the finial he managed to hold off a kart for many laps to claim 16th.  This was not a bad result but less then Bailey had hoped for this round.  We ended up running with an improvised rain master for the final session which seems to really help with under steer and we have a new seat on order which we plan to mount slightly higher to help improve grip without the rain master/booster seat!

We were both glad that Barnaby had a great weekend with a 5th and an 8th – well done matey and thanks for your help sorting the brakes (again!). Thanks to everyone that turned up to support us this weekend including Mum, Dad, Em, Merv, Eva, Marky, Sally and not forgetting Belinda and Scoop.  We are both already looking forwards to Rounds 6-7 at the excellent Whilton Mill Circuit and plan to squeeze some testing in with the new seat before then at Clay.