Patchy R8 Kimbolton – Seniors!
Patchy had his third stint in Senior X30 this weekend at Kimbolton. With Saturday being practice and the freshly rebuilt engine coming back form the gods of SSport we were hoping for a better time. Last month was one of the most trying weekends in the eight years of karting. Surely this weekend couldn’t get any worse?!
HKRC Sept 23, Round 8 – Practice day
Saturday practice and the arduous task of running the engine in meant the first three sessions were about plodding around putting a nice layer of carbon on the piston and ensuring that everything was peachy. The final three sessions were flat out and Josh was on pace with the rest of the grid. Spike had worked his magic and Josh’s engine was back to it’s best.
HKRC Sept 23, Round 8 – Race day
Heat 1 – Started P4, moved up to P2, by his own admission, Patchy messed up the Willows and dropped to P6. Got his head down and managed to snatch P5 on the last corner. Good start!
Heat 2 – Complained of hopping after P6, so made a few adjustments. Didn’t seem to work, was a few tenths off and finished P5.
Heat 3 – Starts POLE. Alas, the heavens opened and the weather was biblical. The rain actually hurt when it hit! A speedy set up for wet found that the clutch had snapped! Massive thank you to Sam of the Veloce Race team for changing it and helping dad put the whole thing back to gether. A sprint to the gate saw us miss the grid by 20 seconds. Even with the rest of the senior grid telling the marshals to just let us race they wouldn’t. I guess rules are rules, but when something like that happens and the whole grid saying let him race, maybe something should change?! Really appreciate the whole Senior X30 grid trying to help out! so Patchy got a DNF!
FINAL – Starts P6. Managed to get to P4 and then got into a battle that saw him drop back to 6th. With only ever racing here once in the wet and never in the adult class, Patchy initially struggled, on the final lap he nipped past for 5th and then went nearly a second faster than 4th place. Unfortunately the chequered came out and the final was complete. Turns out I’d over geared him to, who knows what would have happened if I’d got the gearing right!
A really tough weekend, but Josh is making improvements every month!
Huge thank you to Albex Exhibitions for covering this months slick tyres and the race weekend sponsors Abobey, GET, The Mortgage Guy Ltd, Ssportengines for the waft, The Hickens and Alto Exhibitions. Without you guys Josh wouldn’t be able to do what he absolutely loves.
Roll on next month. Hopefully we’ll have a spot of good luck!
