Race Report Easykart 2012 Round 6/7 - Whilton Mill

The last time out at Forest Edge was one to forget but two big lessons had been learnt. Firstly, Bailey now understood the importance of staying positive; well at least I hope he does. Instead of getting hot under the collar, it’s much better to focus you energy on making things better, analysis, adapt and overcome.  Secondly, we thought we might have made a breakthrough in the lack of grip department (at last!).  Bailey has been complaining most of the year that he lacks grip in the dry on old and new rubber.  We have tried everything and mostly opt to run a full wet setup to maximise grip, even in the dry.  However we believe that maybe the seating position was wrong and Bails has been sat too low.  Cheque book out and new seat in, posh one too and on to testing.

Testing on the Friday started pretty well, Bailey was on the pace of the mid pack in the dry in the first session and seemed genuinely pleased with his Kart which is always nice.  We opted to change to steering wheel angle a little in the second session and this seemed to help even more; Bailey was running a strong top 10 pace.  The new seating position seemed to have removed the lack of grip and we were able to start working on a dry setup for the first time since Clay. (Maybe Jenson Button is sitting too low too). The last two sessions were not so great, the general pace of the field increased and although some guys were running new rubber we seemed to be losing time.  When Bailey reported that it was bogging down and he had no bottom end I leaned her out a bit for the last session.  In the last session it was far worse, Niki was out on track and he confirmed Bailey had no pickup out the corners, this was a concern. I opted to change the Carb along with the planned new Chain and Plug ready for race day.  During the evening I started to panic a little (after many ciders I might add) about carb settings in the heat, I wondered if I had maybe leaned it out too much and melted something that should not be melted?   

The first of two rounds at Whilton Mill arrived, it was a bit overcast but already pretty hot and we would be running on the full international circuit.  For peace of mind we arrived early and took the Kart down to have the internals checked, just to be sure I didn’t melt anything.  Andy gave us the all clear (Thanks Andy) and we prepped for qualifying. Qualifying in the dry has been a bit of an issue for us this year.  Sometimes Bailey gets too worked up, sometimes I cock up the fuel and go far too heavy, other times I mess up pressures, we both take it in turns.  However we did a lot of work on the Friday getting the kart weight right and fuel burn maths done and dusted (a world first for us) and I was pretty happy with my understanding of pressures v temp at Whilton this weekend so we had reason to be semi-confident.  I had suggested to Bailey that he did worry about qualifying and just treated like it did not matter, like a test day, easy to say.  In Quali, Bails didn't really find a clean lap and ended up P20 and a full 1.2 seconds off pole with a 50.0 (he was doing low 49’s all day long during testing the day before on old rubber). This is his lowest qualifying gird slot this year; he was bitterly disappointed and on the back foot again.

We headed into the heat with nothing lose, again.  Bailey did well to avoid the drama’s that unfolded during this first race of the weekend, pulling off some sweet moves on his way to a respectable P13.  It was a very tense race and Bailey did well to make up so many places and was now in striking distance for the meaty points in the pre-final, the top 10 could still be on! The pre-final kicked off in a blaze of smoke and rubber, despite making up 2 places at the start, he was re-passed a few laps later and ended up 12, not bad at all under the circumstances, matching his best pre-finish result from Llandow this year where he had a 12th and then 10th in the final.

Onwards to the last race of the day and starting 12th Bailey was hopeful of a good finish and was seeking the top 10.  It was another frantic start but Bails managed to hold station this time.  Then as the race unfolded he start to move up, some dramas further up the field helped along with some sweet passes and Bailey was running 8th, hot on the tail of 7th, 6th and 5th.  Belinda and I were finding it hard to watch, “stay there” and “is it over yet” were about all Belinda could manage to say.  On the last lap, Bailey was very close to the 7th place kart; Nicole Firth, who was having a great run. 6 corners to go and Bailey did what he promised he would, but I wish he hadn’t.  Diving for a gap that didn’t really exist (anywhere except inside Baileys head anyway) he took himself and Nicole out of the top 10 and they finished 12th and 13th. It was not intentional but Bailey had warned me he would go for a last lap move instead of staying sat. When he calmed down he said, well dad, 7th is better than 8th.  Can’t blame a lad for trying but it was never on and the effects were hard to watch as he effectively and systematically ruined his potential best result with a silly half arsed pass, not something he normally does.  I think half the people in the pits looked over as I shout NOOOOOOOO!  Anyway, that’s racing, Bailey was proper gutted and angry with himself, he apologised to Nicole and learnt another valuable lesson.   To make matter worse, the kart had been leaking fuel from lap one.  When Bailey came in to the pits after binning it his legs were burning due to the amount of fuel that had sprayed onto him, at this point I was pretty scary, we stripped him in the pits and got him cleaned up.  The fault was traced by process of elimination to be a poor seal on the filter cap or that it was cross threaded.  We whipped the tank out and checked every fuel line to be safe and Bailey was reminded of my three rules, safety, fun, fast (in that order).  Next time he has a fuel leak he knows to head straight to the pits.

I opted to make some more changes to the kart, I noticed he was not killer on the brakes today and the pads were glazing quite badly after each session.  We opted to slacken up the brake cable a little to compensate for any potential dragging of the brake pedal, Bailey was adamant this was not the case but we did it anyway, just in case. (thanks Mickey)

Sunday was upon us, the temp’s were much lower and the threat of rain was in the air.  Bailey seemed very fired up and determined to make amends for binning it the day before. He said to me on the way to the track that he wanted to prove he could do it and that he would show me. Sunday was running on a different track configuration, the national Zulu circuit.  We opted for a different approach for qualifying and warm-up.  Instead of hanging back and doing limited laps to make the best use of the rubber, we opted instead to just run the whole of both session's, right to the clock.  Bailey was more relaxed and after yesterday’s effort in Qualifying it couldn’t get much worse.  Quali was very close and the short tracker meant that traffic was more of a factor but my (not so) little karter did well, finding space and setting very constant lap times, improving throughout the session to finish an impressive 13th, this time just 0.6 off the pole.

During the pre-final Bailey took his time and planned his moves well, moving up just one place to 12th.  The pre-final was upon us in no time and again Bailey thrilled us with some well times and accurate overtakes to finish 10th, his highest result in a pre-final this year, way to go!  This time it was all down to pace and there was no help from others falling off, this was all his own work and I could tell he was pleased.  In the final Bailey was exceptional, moving up the field to take a poetic 7th place at the checked flag.  I made sure I was on the start finish to watch him take the flag and his clenched fist was enough to tell me how pleased he was.  The measure of his moves today was the making of his weekend.  Bailey managed to prove to himself that if he keeps his head down and worries only about himself he can achieve great things, I didn’t expect us to get a 10th and 7th this year, not with the lack of testing and quality of the field in Junior class this year. For Bails to manage this with his whole family watching, without cracking under pressure was a proper good way to end the season.  

 

To top it all off, Sunday 12th August 2012 will be etched in mind forever as the first complete day of racing were Bailey didn’t lose his rag, get angry, swear (much) or do anything else negative, not once, all day.  The whole day was spent instead looking to improve, asking lots of questions and generally focusing on doing the best he could. This without a doubt contributed towards a career best double top ten finish. I think that if he stays on this path the others karts might need to start worrying a little more about #73 because bravery and intelligence is a formidable combination.

I would like to thank all of the Platform Team crew for their help and assistance this year, I would say this is the first year we have actually felt “at home” during a karting season.  Niki’s driving assistance has been top draw and he has really help bring Bailey forwards as a racer.  We have learnt so much about how to go racing from Russ and Mickey’s technical knowledge and assistance as really helped our understanding of the technical aspects of a Kart, and get us right out the brown stuff too!.  We are both glad Barn had a cracking end to the year in Senior Lights with his sublime skills in the wet to win the heat. Barnaby’s help this year has been great and his racing attitude has most definitely rubbed off on my boy so cheers again lads. I would also like to thank Mark Pocock and CrystalNet Computers for assisting with sponsorship, cheers dude.