OEKC O Plate Race 6th February 2011 at Whilton Mill; The Chunky Cup:

We weren't racing as a team at this race but instead both Thomas and James were driving for TT Sport. We had a few problems, the first of which was a blown valve in the right rear tyre, possibly caused by an overenthusiastic overtaking manoevre at the start by KKC. This was followed by a failing battery at the last pit stop and finished with a lack of fuel at the end. Despite this we can only have been a hundreth of a second off 3rd place in our class and the same amount off 6th place overall as Team Chunky overtook us again a couple of laps from the end as we slowed to conserve fuel. Both James and Thomas spent much of their sessions learning how the kart worked without being crashingly slow and Andrew and James from TT were very fast and did some stunning times - enough to get us on second pole for the start.

It was an excellent grid with 30 karts about 10 of which were Prokarts. It was good to see them back on the grid and it certainly made entertaining driving. For full results go here. Rene Lubbock's report is here.

So a hopeful start to the season and to our driving for the new team.

 OEKC March 6th 2011 At Whilton Mill; Round 1:

We were driving for TT Sport again and once again a dry but bitterly cold start to the day. Once again Andrew from TT Sport put us on second pole behind RKC. Once again Andrew started the race and had a brilliant hour's ++ race with Sid in the KKC kart, swapping places for 2nd more times than I kept count of. Andrew finally ended the session in front and in first place, pitting a few laps after RKC. The pit stop kept us ahead of KKC, and Thomas, after initially losing a place to third, soon got us back to 2nd. He was some 13 seconds ahead when the brakes gave out with a failure of the hydraulics. James's drive after we had got the stopping power sorted, was unremarkable apart from some scrappy overtaking but when James from TT took over we discovered the starter motor was dead. Another long delay as that was replaced and then James T was out but struggling with what he thought was a moving hub on the axle. After a quick pit stop to check what was going on he was back out again and did some very fast laps towards the end of his session. At the end of all that we were lucky to get 11th. We obviously have the potential as a team and hopefully we've now used up our quota of bad luck. Thomas's rebuild of the carburettor paid dividends and made the kart much easier to drive. Results are here.

 OEKC March 27th 2011 At Lydd; Round 2:

As a team - Thomas and James were driving for TT Sport - we felt a bit robbed in the end, since we seemed set to get our first win of the season. But a pit stop, lengthened by changing one of the front tyres, followed by a leaking radiator causing an overheating engine, dropped us to third on track. James Tracey's last stint was full of excitement. When he started his session we were down in 5th place which was a bit of a surprise having been up to 1st earlier. One of those ahead was a wild card who disappeared after their next stop but that left three other contenders ahead of us: Kartmasters by three or four laps, KKC and Box Tech by only a lap or so. Both of them we reckoned had to pit again, while Kartmasters were saying they might try to run to the end. James was putting in some good laps but was definitely slower than KKC and BoxTech. Both of them then pitted at about the same time putting us up into second but only by about 20 seconds and they were lapping a lot faster than we were. KKC duly came past us with about 20 minutes of the race still to go and it seemed inevitable that Box Tech would do the same. They caught right up but then James responded and kept them at bay for lap after lap and indeed made up time on KKC in the process. What the pit crew didn't know was that the engine temperature had gone over 100 dgrees (the radiator had dumped most of its water) and James was trying hard to nurse it to the finish. He reckoned this particularly hurt his speed down the straight, but anyway he hung on. Meanwhile Kartmasters were able to pit and come out in the lead again albeit on the same lap us but some 20s ?? ahead. James did a superb job of keeping in front of Box Tech who actually faded away in the closing stages, to give us third on track. We only got second when Kartmasters were found to be underweight - they forgot to put on the weights at the last pit stop. But really we should be pretty pleased, the kart handled well and the engine didn't, in the event, let go. Andrew had a storming first stint to get us up from seventh to third in his session and James Tracy did brilliantly to keep in front of Box Tech. Before that Thomas got us up to first in his stint and James put in some respectable times only blotting his copybook by loosing it at the end of the straight and choosing the pit lane in preference to the tyre wall. The results are here.

OEKC May 1st 2011 at Whilton Mill; Round 3:

Andrew wasn't racing for TT Sport so there was just James and Thomas from Red Stripe and James Tracy from TT Sport. A midfield qualifying position wasn't really an issue and at the start James T stayed out of trouble for the first few corners only to have another kart on a kamikaze run slam past and then spin directly in front of him. There was nothing James could do to avoid it and the resulting collision bent the steering column. The kart was still driveable but the lap times were off the pace and after 40 minutes James gave up the struggle and came in. We put in a new column and sent out Thomas but we'd lost a lot of time. The next two sessions with Thomas and then James Michell went well and we had got ourselves up to 5th when James T took over for a second stint. He got our fastest lap and we were on course for a 4th place finish but then for no good reason, the engine seized. There wasn't time with only 45 minutes racing left, to put on a new one and achieve anything useful, so that was that. We were credited with 7th and for the most part we felt reasonably happy with our performance - if not that of the engines's. Later inspection showed that the piston had failed taking a lot of the rest of the engine with it, and since Dartford Karting had replaced the piston in January, they agreed that the whole repair should be done under warranty. For which they earn five stars for customer service ... The race results are here.

OEKC May 22nd 2011 at Daytona Milton Keynes; Round 4:

In blustery conditions, threatening showers one moment and producing full sun the next, Andrew set a stunning pole position time for us in practice, with the re-built engine. He continued his success throughout his drive battling for 1st with Monty in the Kartmasters kart, finally managing to pull away from him towards the end of his session.. Although a number of full course yellows worked against us we were still in first as Thomas went out. He was quite quickly caught by second placed Box Tech but he was driving well and held them behind him until they slipped past on the approach to the hairpin after the esses. That wasn't the end of it however and Thomas got the place back again, pulled out a useful gap only to get caught again and overtaken, before finally clipping the tyre wall at the hairpin at the start of the uphill straight. This cracked an already tired rear axle and, now almost at the end of his session, he managed to limp back to the pits where we lost a good half hour putting in a replacement. After that there probably wasn't much anybody could have done to rescue our race. James M circulated reliably until about half an hour from the end of his session, when his seat became almost impossibly painful as the lead insert slipped down. He got to the end of his drive however and James T took over and squeezed in a 59:046 lap to beat Thomas' best by a few hundredths of a second and getting us up from 13th to 11th place where we finished. Full results are here.

OEKC July 2nd 2011 at Whilton Mill; Round 5:

A difficult race for us in TT Sport as we were forced to use our backup chassis and we never got the setup quite right. As a result we started in 12th and James Tracey battled with the recalcitrant kart for the full 67 minutes in blazing sunshine and increasing heat, and gained a couple of places for his pains. We had a good pit stop which enabled us to jump at least two teams and Thomas then went out for his stint and again was rewarded with steady progress up the grid as he fought with Ikonn Racing - he won that contest despite feeling unhappy with the way the kart handled. The next pit stop was wrecked by the unreliable Whilton Mill scales and then James Michell was out on track and continued the progress of James and Thomas. Although not as fast as James T, he put in some decent laps and that together with a high attrition rate amongst the opposition got us up to 4th as his session came to an end. However, before it did, it became obvious there was something fundamentally wrong with the the transmission and James came in unannounced a couple of laps early when he had doubts that he was going to get round the rest of the lap. We discovered that the engine had moved and that the rear sprocket had stripped most of it's teeth, so we put on a new one and took the opportunity to narrow the rear track at the same time. Since Andrew wasn't racing this weekend, James T went out again and was immediately faster getting our best lap at 48.068. But it didn't last as the new sprocket got destroyed by the old chain. Another stop for a new sprocket and chain and Thomas was out again for the last few laps which gained us 8th place from JxJ on the final lap. Full results are here.

OEKC August 20th 2011 at Whilton Mill; Round 6:

It didn't start terribly well and it finished not much better as we qualified and finished in 8th place. Andrew started the race in good sunny weather, but not totally happy with the the kart, being  nine tenths off the pace of the fastest team. Nevertheless he got up to a solid sixth place with some consistently fast driving before clipping the kerb and throwing off the chain. By the time we had that sorted out and had narrowed the rear track a little, we were almost last though Andrew was now putting in his quickest laps. His session came to an end when the Prokart of T-Mob turned over and caught fire causing a red flag and a fifteen minute pause in the racing. At the restart we brought him straight in although the pit stop was delayed as we replaced a seat stay bolt. James Tracey was out next and in a good battle with Box Tech got our fastest lap of the race at 47.902. In the middle of his stint we got a short burst of rain, but it only slowed him down for two or three laps. However we were still in the bottom half of the field and James' race was brought to an end after 55 minutes when a front tyre deflated for no obvious reason. Thomas was out next after a lengthened pit stop to put on a new wheel. He had a good stint lasting 66 minutes and apart from an altercation with 95 HVAC 2 when he tried to overtake them at the top of the circuit, he was very consistent and kept a good average speed. This time the pit stop and changeover to James Michell went well and although the weather was looking a lot more like rain, for the first few laps of his stint James still had a dry track. He was battling with Boxed Out for a lot of his session and when the rain arrived they came past fairly easily as James drove more cautiously. It went on spitting on and off for most of the rest of the session though James still managed a few laps in the 48s. He got past Boxed Out again when they slipped on some more rain and although they then overtook him once more, by the end James was back in front by a decent margin. As the last lap started, so did the rain with some serious intent and James crept over the line to finish in 8th pace. The full results are here.

OEKC September 18th 2011 at Daytona Milton Keynes; Round 7:

We had George driving for us in this round as a replacement for Andrew and Thomas who were both absent elsewhere. James Tracy qualified us in 6th but that was only three tenths off second and the kart felt pretty good once the track had dried out properly. In the race we didn’t seem to make much progress though James was going very well especially when given a clear track - he had a tendency to get bottled up behind the opposition. About half way through his stint his performance dropped off a bit as the kart seemed to bog down much more in slow corners. Possibly a crack in the exhaust? We did find a slight one at the end... James Michell was out next and what with a slow stop to fit his lead seat and a tentative out lap we lost a lot of time on the leaders. His main problem was that the throttle had a tendency to stick wide open. Since this didn’t happen with either James T or George it must have been something to do with the way he was driving it. Or possibly with the seat insert? (a new one for this race since the old one doesn't fit in the new seat we fitted for George). Or something, but despite his best efforts he couldn’t work out what was doing it. It would come off full throttle under emergency braking and avoidance of Armageddon manoeuvres and he stayed on the track, but it was definitely unnerving. It was his excuse for a rather pedestrian pace, which lost us more time to the leaders but kept us in 5th place. There were a few spots of rain now, but nothing significant. George took over and he drove well, upping the pace once again and making himself very wide for the overtaking opposition! Due to his consistency and a high attrition rate elsewhere we were up to 3rd when James Tracy took over with a 4 or 5 lap gap to the front two and 2 to 3 lap gap over 4th position. He was faster in this session than he had been in the first one, lowering his fastest lap by about a half second to get our fastest lap of 59.490s. However soon after this the throttle pedal stop came loose which made him a bit more cautious. But we maintained 3rd without further problems to get a really good double points result for the team. Full results are here.

OEKC October 30th 2011 at Whilton Mill; Round 8:

The weather stayed dry despite threatening rain and even managed some blinding in-your-face sun for those driving in the last hour. We had the same set up as the previous race and that enabled Andrew to qualify us in 7th. James Tracy started the race but got hit on the rear wheel on the warming up lap by another kart which we guessed fractured one of the studs causing a complete failure 18 laps later. James was lucky to get back to the pits with the rear wheel just hanging on. The resulting nine laps delay put us down into 22nd place. James went out again but wasn't totally happy with the kart and was suffering badly from bruised ribs. Thomas took over perhaps one lap earlier than scheduled and had a reasonable stint only getting a nasty scare when another kart drove straight out of the pits and onto the racing line without looking, causing Thomas to take to the grass. He was also finding that the engine would cut out at the right hander at the bottom of the main straight which made life a bit trickier than it needed to be. By the end of his session we were 13th. For Andrew's drive we lowered the rear tyre pressures by 2psi which maybe was an improvement. At any rate he got our fastest lap of the race at 47.180s and by the end of his session we had got up to 9th place. James Michell took over for the final stint and drove a solid session without any dramas. He was in 7th position and catching 6th place Vivo SS when the engine began to cut out/misfire quite badly and not knowing how close he was to Vivo he backed off by a couple of seconds a lap to be kind to the engine. He wouldn't have caught Vivo at that stage anyway, so it was the right thing to do. So we came 7th which was enough to give us 3rd place in the Championship an excellent result for the year. Full results are here.