Day One - Friday 18th Jan 2019
Official Practice
I arrived at Formula Fast in a relaxed state of mind (with the right degree of nervous anticipation) for my two ‘official’ practice sessions, thankful of my decision to travel to & stay in Milton Keynes the night before, as opposed to the usual rush to get the circuit on time on what always seems to be a congested Friday. The circuit isn’t maximum-level busy, with a majority of the European contingent not due to arrive until later in the day, but already there is a buzz about the place. There’s now a familiarity about venue, having attended ‘members’ events in November & December 2018- Familiar faces and names (on the timing sheets) too, although I’ve never been very good at putting the two together! It’s cold, seemingly not as cold as previous years but I expect the temperature to drop over the weekend as the action on the track hots up
My sessions in the afternoon are spent exploring the grip levels, trying various lines and attempting to nail a pit stop technique that would lose me the least time when the racing gets underway. Between my time on track, I observe what the other drivers are up to- Do they lift here? Do they turn there? How long are they stationary for in the pits? Etc, etc. No stone unturned & all that..
My best time? A not exactly headline-grabbing 32.451, interestingly set during my first session which mean either whatever technique I was trying in the second wasn’t working, or that there was still a bit of gap between karts- Impossible to tell without driving the same machines back to back. A quick look at the times other drivers were doing in the same karts however showed that I was more or less up to speed, with hopefully more to come over the next couple of days. I’d soon find out!
Day Two- Saturday 19th Jan 2019
Heats 1 & 2
Today the nerves really hit. I woke up way earlier than I needed to, my heart beating hard in my chest at what lay ahead. For me, BRKC Saturday meant two 20- Minute heat races with single lap qualifying to determine the grid. My first heat was scheduled to start at 12.30 and I’d be sharing the track with teammate Darren Pearce, along with Connor Marsh, Gregory Laporte, Robin Kassam and Phil Prior, amongst others. I drew the no. 9 kart for this first race, which had shown well in the heats that had run earlier in the day. Connor stormed to pole position as more or less expected, but I surprised myself by putting in the 4th fastest qualifying lap- One of the tidiest I think I’ve ever driven at this circuit. Darren I think qualified in 6th
The race got underway with the usual rolling start and I lost a bit of ground initially before pegging the gap to the third-place driver at around one second. Connor had already disappeared up the road in what was commonly agreed to be a monster of a kart, and the race settled down into a fairly uneventful first half. I clocked Darren pitting very early in the race, a tactic that’s worked well for him in the past, but I decided to try & go with the driver ahead to see if an under or over cut would be possible.
As he pitted, I again drove what I felt was one of my better laps in recent memory before heading to the pit lane myself a lap later. Unfortunately a a cautious stop meant that I re-emerged behind the same driver, only slightly closer. At this point there was still about 10mins of the race left to run, and all was going fairly smoothly until Gregory Laporte emerged from the pits just head of me. Giving me space to his left as we went though the first couple of corners, my momentum got me slightly ahead before he took the inside line into the right-hand hairpin. Only then a sign was hung out from Race Control which I missed but was actually indicating that Laporte had completed an invalid pit stop, meaning he had to pit again which he did on the very next lap. This left me with a clear run to the chequered flag to secure a relatively solid 4th, with Darren coming in in 5th after closing the initial gap to myself. I’d soon find out whether this would be as good as it got for me, but I was pleased with this first race none the less..
My second heat started at 5pm which left me time to retire back to my hotel room for a few hours, but I soon found myself back in a kart (no.19 this time) lining up against Matt Bartsch, Calum Conway, Adam Davis, Patryk Nieroda and five other drivers who’s names I probably should have recognised as potential threats, but as previously stated I’ve never been very good with names..
This race (as well as the third round of heats) would take place on the hairpin-strewn, new-for-2019 ‘alternate’ circuit layout.. A fact I’d almost forgotten about until I tuned in to the live stream to see how my fellow Bristol drivers were doing!
This turned out to be one of those races where you end scratching your head at the end of it, wondering what happened. I qualified a lowly 8th but gained 2 positions on the opening lap as drivers ahead tangled with one another, I then pulled the same over-cut pit manoeuvre I’d tried earlier to overtake Jim Lovell, who’s completed his pit stop a lap earlier.
There was then a bizarre incident where the yellow lights came on (reduce your speed, prepare to stop) and one of the front-running drivers actually DID stop, losing 3 positions in the process. He was then handed back the positions, and the race was underway again. Jim eventually found his way past me at the first proper corner, and I clung on by the skin of my teeth to finish exactly where I started (having evidently been overtaken by others who had stopped earlier than I had)
Regarding the yellow light incident, I was unable to get a clear answer out of anyone as to why the races was suddenly stopped but without seeing the full reply There’s was just more than a whiff of preferential treatment about the fact that one of drivers looked to have misread the situation, came to a complete stop (in error) only to cause the red flag and subsequently get pushed back into position. Now without seeing the full race replay, my initial thoughts on this is that had it been one of the lowlier drivers it would have been a case of ‘tough luck, you’ve misread the situation’ and that would have been that. The driver in question didn’t appear to have had an issue with his kart as he was able to race on at his usual place, so I can only assume he was let off the hook somewhat by being given his position back- which is frustrating..
Anyway, 8th is still 8th whichever way you cut it. And that’s not good enough in this competition. Still, I came away from my second heat pleased to have been on the pace, there or thereabouts, and happy that my pit stops had thus far worked in my favour. One could only wonder what the third and final day of BRKC 2019 might bring..
Day Three - Sunday 20th Jan 2019
Heats 3 & 4
Today was a cold one. I was at the circuit just after 9am, having woken up to a fairly thick frost earlier on which required some effort to remove from my on-loan-for-the-weekend VW T4 van. Mission accomplished, I then made it to the circuit in good time in order to grab a coffee & return some semblance of warmth to my body.
This race (again, run on the alternate layout) turned out to be one of those races where the final result doesn’t really reflect what I felt was a solid performance. Admittedly I let myself down by only qualifying in 8th (again!) in kart 8, but felt I could possibly make up a couple of places in the race. As it turned out, the top 5 were just on a different planet and I lost a little too much ground in the early stages tucked up behind Tim Andrew. When a couple of the front runners pitted early, putting them back out directly behind Tim & myself, I sacrificed the gap in order to latch onto these faster drivers. I waved them through & then watched as they both caught & got tangled with Tim in the slower part of the circuit. As the track unwound into the back straight one of these drivers was still remonstrating with Tim which pushed him to the dusty outside line, which allowed me to get alongside and claim the next corner, promoting me the 7th.
A few laps later I made another clean pit stop so as to cover off a potential under-cut attempt from Tim, which left me with a clear run to flag. I found myself taking chunks of time out of the 6th-places driver but ran out of laps to mount a real challenge. Still, I was pleased with how I’d driven and it was nice to hear later that the event commentators had praised me for my race craft.
My fourth and final heat would take place on the regular circuit layout, a race that would include multiple BRKC winner Ruben Boutens(!). For this race I drew kart no. 21, which turned out to be a beast of a machine. I qualified in 6th (having failed to take advantage of the performance of said kart) but in the early stages managed to latch onto the top 5 who were running nose to tail, whilst building a gap back to the drivers in 7th & 8th. On by one the drivers ahead of me made their pit stops, until I found myself in the lead of the race!
Sensing an opportunity to make another over-cut during my stop I dived in a lap after taking the lead- This is where my lack of experience in leading races came into play. Rather than realising that the front-running drivers (who had all stopped) would have slowed each other down battling for position, theoretically meaning I could have build up a gap, I instead had a crisis of confidence and decided to pit straight away rather than having faith in my pace..
As it happened, I emerged from my stop in third place ahead of Boutens(!!) but in my excitement I ran wide exiting the snail which allowed the multi-time BRKC champ to get inside me as we moved on to the back straight. Again looking back at this point I should have given up the position and tucked in behind him, but I fought to hold on around the outside which resulted in a bit of contact and me getting squeezed towards the wall just after the hairpin. It transpired that Ruben himself was being squeezed into me so I’ll let him off on this occasion (Lol)..
That incident put me back down to 6th, but I had the bit between my teeth and soon found myself back on the tail of the 5th-placed driver, who himself was chasing down Mario Blanco Gonzale. At one point I made a lunge to get slightly ahead, only to be re-passed as the direction of the track went from right to left, but I wasn’t to be held back & a lap or so later I threw a move Ricciardo-style down into the hairpin at the end of the straight. As the laps wound down I found myself reeling in Mario who was also closing in on the top 3, but it just wasn’t to be. The top 5 drivers crossed the line more or less nose-to-tail with me bringing up the rear, but the compliments I was given in the pits by some of my fellow competitors made up for what was in actuality another average result.
And that’s BRKC in a nutshell- a 5th placed finish can leave you feeling like you’ve won a race, when you know you’ve given your all against the very best that indoor karting has to offer. You can’t put a price on that!
Until next time
Ben
