April was a busy month here at BJC Racing and the on-track action has been hotting up to match the arrival of Spring!
First up for me this month was the 2nd round (I’d missed the first) of the SERKC multi-venue Championship, a series put together by Sam Slater & Martin ‘Diego’ Savage, with this round taking place at Teamsport Bristol. Sadly despite being a well-attended & fun event with some great on-track racing, the event ran late which meant I had to cut out early & miss my ‘final’ which was a shame as although I didn’t manage to win any of my heat races I was in a position where I likely would have qualified at the very front of the ‘B’ final, or at the very back of the ‘A’ final- I guess I’ll never know! Despite Martin’s best efforts to get the event going on-time & keep a tight schedule interference by Teamsport’s head office meant those competing in SERKC had to share track time with an Arrive n’ Drive public group, which set us back a bit & as mentioned meant I sadly had to get going before the event finished. A quick thanks to Sam & Martin for putting the series together and I wish them all the best for the rounds to come- More info on SERKC can be found here;
On Saturday 13th (Unlucky for some) I found myself unable to resist the urge to attempt to better my round 1 result at the Castle Combe Adult Championship, so found myself making my way up to the Wiltshire circuit for Round 2. Sadly on the day it just wasn’t to be- Having peaked early on the event with a win & a 2nd from my opening races things quickly went downhill; 4th in my 3rd heat (following two botched pass attempts) when I should have really finished 2nd, then a lonely 3rd in my final heat left me starting from 3rd place in my semi-final. An average-at-best kart (No.13, as I said- Unlucky!) left me sliding about all over the place where before I had grip meant I dropped a position and crossed the line a distant 4th. Highly disappointing.
Again it felt very much like a case of ‘what ifs’ and ‘could have beens’ but at the end of the day I just wasn’t able to race at a consistently high enough standard to make the final. The racing at Castle Combe is *so* competitive and any poor results or slightly iffy machinery really does make it difficult to achieve a great result. The fact I pulled off a slick-as overtake around the outside of turn one in one of my heats was of minor consolation. Whether I’ll be back for round 3 in May I’ve still not decided..
Once Easter was out of the way I had the pleasure of joining a number of drivers local to me for an afternoon of racing- In Milton Keynes! More specifically, the event was being run at the Daytona outdoor circuit using their fleet of DMax karts, and was kindly organised by Kirsty Schnitzer-Street as part of the fledgling ‘Kirsty’s Karting Events’ series (Again, see Facebook for details!)
After an uneventful journey up to MK I met up with the other drivers & was greeted by cloudy skies but cool temperatures & dry track conditions- More or less ideal conditions for my first visit to Daytona since I entered a Covkartsport round here a couple of years ago. For this event we would be using Daytona’s range of DMAX karts, which I believe are more ‘general public’ - friendly versions of Rotax karts (though I might be wrong!) -These are race-tuned two stroke karts that feature a high revving 22bhp, 125cc engine, and they’re a world apart from the ‘Sodi’ karts (12bhp) that I drove the last time I was here!
Seventeen drivers of varying experience took to the circuit following the mandatory safety briefing, for a 10 minute practice/qualifying session followed by a 30 minute race. Whilst I’d never driven these karts on this particular circuit, I felt I was more or less up to speed within a handful of laps, and qualified in 5th place. As the race got underway (using a rolling start format) I managed to avoid the obligatory carnage at the 2nd corner & gained a position to run in 4th place for a few laps. One thing that was really noticeable about these karts compared to my regular machines is that the tyre & brake warm-up is much more noticeable, in that if you aren’t moving for period & then suddenly get up to speed you experience more than a fair bit of understeer, as well as grabby brakes. Once warmed up however the DMAX karts were a pleasure to drive, really allowing you to settle into a rhythm (and at the same time actually feeling more comfortable personally than the slower Sodi karts)
Over the next 8 laps or so I was inevitable caught & passed by a few quicker drivers who had found their feet, dropping to 7th before becoming embroiled in a battle with two other karts that would eventually see me up to 5th place, before a kart issue for Matt Starke promotes me to 4th as the chequered flag fell.
Once all of the drivers had crossed the line we reconvened to the hospitality area to exchange stories of the race, and for a nice trophy presentation. Whilst I wasn’t too disappointed to have missed out on a podium place (genuinely having thought I’d finished around 6th place) I was pleased to have achieved the 3rd fastest lap of the event (1.08.265), behind only Club 100 & 24hr race starlet Ed Barrs, and Ben Thomas- who coincidentally also finished 1st & 2nd. Milton-Keynes native Ben Winter was 3rd with a best time of 1.08.328, so all in all I was fairly satisfied with how the event went! A big thanks goes to Kirsty for getting everything and everyone organised, and to Paul Starke (father of Matt) for taking some excellent photos!
As I said, a fairly busy month!! On a final note, if you’ve not done so already please feel free to give my Facebook page a ‘Like’, just search for ‘BJC Racing’, and if you are on Instagram my profile name there is ‘bejc1’ :D
Catch y’all soon!
Ben
