daved6
Boy Racer
We attended a round of the Euro Endurance Championship in France last month at a 1500m circuit at Mer which is down near the Loire Valley (6 heures du centre on the 11/10/2008)
This was a 6 hour endurance race with an entry of 43 karts made up of 31 rotax's and 12 of the faster KF2 karts, the format was open practice on the Friday afternoon / evening, followed by 1 hour open practice on the Saturday morning prior to a 15 minute qualifying session in the early afternoon. The karts were then kept in parc -ferme prior to the race starting at 16.00 hours and finishing under flood light at 22.00 hours.
We arrive in France on the Friday morning after the overnight crossing on the channel ferry and then drove the 4.5 hours to the circuit, by 3.00pm the boys were out on circuit driving, the sun was shining and the temperatures were in the high 27C.........absolutely fantastic.
We were late back to the hotel that night and tired but everyone was full of excitement, we returned to the circuit Saturday morning and the boys selected which kart they were going to race on which I then re-built whilst they carried on practicing on the spare kart, we then scrutineered the race kart and waited for qualifying to begin. I then stripped the spare kart so that we had all the major assemblies available as spares for the race.
Jonathan took on the role of qualifying and due to his inexperience spent most of the 15minutes trying to find a clean lap with all the 43 karts on circuit together.......we ended up qualifying 28th out of 43 runners, our biggest problem was the lack of front brakes as we don't use them in the UK but on the European circuits they all use them.
I explained to the boys that we were only here to learn and enjoy ourselves, but they really wanted to do well........
The race started and Jonathan passed 6 karts in the first lap and was pushing hard, this then ended with a spin off the circuit leaving us in last place and nearly a lap down to the leaders, he then started to settle down and reel people in, Jamie jump in after 45mins and put an hour long stint in, making up loads of ground and passing lots of people.....
Jonathan then jumped back in for another hour and continued the fight back, at this I was starting to wonder how long they could keep this pace up as they had never driven for more than 30 minutes at a time
By the time Jamie jumped back in for his last hour stint we were back in the middle of the pack and looking strong, the floodlights were now on and the race had a fantastic feel/atmosphere to it, a lot of these teams also run the 24 hour Le Mans race so this 6 hour was almost a sprint race for them !!!
Jamie brought the kart back in good shape for Jonathan's final 50 minute run to the finish flag, Jamie had completed 3 hours at the wheel without a single mistake.......Jonny was all fired up and really wanted to make amends for his earlier spin, he settled into a fantastic rythem and pace and charged right to the flag, passing 5 karts over the last 2 laps for us to finish a solid 8th in class and 13th overall out of the 43 that started on our first attempt.
This was the most fantastic race experience to date, great fun, great racing, fantastic circuit and hot dry wheather........we will be going back to do some more next year for sure
http://www.euro-endurance.com/race_details.php?id=36
We are looking at putting a 4 man team together to compete in next year's 24 hour Le Mans event.............I just need to find 2 drivers who have National A licences and a 3K budget to spend
This was a 6 hour endurance race with an entry of 43 karts made up of 31 rotax's and 12 of the faster KF2 karts, the format was open practice on the Friday afternoon / evening, followed by 1 hour open practice on the Saturday morning prior to a 15 minute qualifying session in the early afternoon. The karts were then kept in parc -ferme prior to the race starting at 16.00 hours and finishing under flood light at 22.00 hours.
We arrive in France on the Friday morning after the overnight crossing on the channel ferry and then drove the 4.5 hours to the circuit, by 3.00pm the boys were out on circuit driving, the sun was shining and the temperatures were in the high 27C.........absolutely fantastic.
We were late back to the hotel that night and tired but everyone was full of excitement, we returned to the circuit Saturday morning and the boys selected which kart they were going to race on which I then re-built whilst they carried on practicing on the spare kart, we then scrutineered the race kart and waited for qualifying to begin. I then stripped the spare kart so that we had all the major assemblies available as spares for the race.
Jonathan took on the role of qualifying and due to his inexperience spent most of the 15minutes trying to find a clean lap with all the 43 karts on circuit together.......we ended up qualifying 28th out of 43 runners, our biggest problem was the lack of front brakes as we don't use them in the UK but on the European circuits they all use them.
I explained to the boys that we were only here to learn and enjoy ourselves, but they really wanted to do well........
The race started and Jonathan passed 6 karts in the first lap and was pushing hard, this then ended with a spin off the circuit leaving us in last place and nearly a lap down to the leaders, he then started to settle down and reel people in, Jamie jump in after 45mins and put an hour long stint in, making up loads of ground and passing lots of people.....
Jonathan then jumped back in for another hour and continued the fight back, at this I was starting to wonder how long they could keep this pace up as they had never driven for more than 30 minutes at a time
By the time Jamie jumped back in for his last hour stint we were back in the middle of the pack and looking strong, the floodlights were now on and the race had a fantastic feel/atmosphere to it, a lot of these teams also run the 24 hour Le Mans race so this 6 hour was almost a sprint race for them !!!
Jamie brought the kart back in good shape for Jonathan's final 50 minute run to the finish flag, Jamie had completed 3 hours at the wheel without a single mistake.......Jonny was all fired up and really wanted to make amends for his earlier spin, he settled into a fantastic rythem and pace and charged right to the flag, passing 5 karts over the last 2 laps for us to finish a solid 8th in class and 13th overall out of the 43 that started on our first attempt.
This was the most fantastic race experience to date, great fun, great racing, fantastic circuit and hot dry wheather........we will be going back to do some more next year for sure
http://www.euro-endurance.com/race_details.php?id=36
We are looking at putting a 4 man team together to compete in next year's 24 hour Le Mans event.............I just need to find 2 drivers who have National A licences and a 3K budget to spend
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