Another “character building” weekend at Buckmore Park this weekend for Theo. 🙁
He started very strongly on Saturday when the track was wet and icy, being one of the fastest on track. But then we lost our edge once the track dried out. Saturday night was spent trying to work out why the kart appeared to bog in grippy conditions.
With heavy rain overnight, raceday Sunday started very wet. And Theo got off to a reasonably good start, being in the top 3 during most of qualifying until he got caught in traffic and dropped down to 7th, meaning he qualified 8th overall.
This meant Theo started his first heat from 4th, and with a great start he was into 2nd within a couple of corners and into the lead by the start of lap 2. He lead the race from there onwards, until a mistake in defending on the last lap dropped him down to 2nd before the finish line. Nonetheless a great drive!
Starting his pre-final in 2nd, he stayed in that position for most of the race as the leading 3 broke away from the rest of the pack, but a failing/tightened chain from the 3rd lap meant that Theo lost considerable power. But with another great drive he still managed to finish 3rd.
This meant that Theo started the final in 5th. However, the track had dried considerably before the start. With the top part of the track still being a little wet, we took a bit of a gamble with the kart setup. However, I got it horribly wrong and Theo had WAY too much grip, meaning that he was a sitting duck for the whole race. To watch all his hard work unravel in the final because of a bad setup was gut-wrenching for me – a true low! But luckily Theo took this very well – a true team player!
Anyway, on to the next race…
Thanks to all the guys at Virtus Motorsport for everything over the weekend, and to James Bean of Zip for the odd bit of help here and there. Thanks also to Paul Babington for the great photos.