This weekend saw Theo competing in the East Anglian Cup held at Kimbolton. A strong performance saw him finish 6th on Saturday, 5th on Sunday (giving us one of the most exciting races I’ve ever seen!), and 8th overall.
Friday was all about testing the 2 different track configurations, and after a shaky start in our first session (marred by a broken accelerator cable), we were soon on front-running pace. So we went into the first raceday with confidence.
In Saturday qualifying, we were on for Pole Position until the exhaust failed on the last lap (luckily just missing our team mate)! We therefore had to forfeit our fastest lap but Theo still did enough to qualify in 2nd alongside team mate Oliver Bearman, to make it a front row lockout for Virtus Motorsport. However, things unraveled half way through Heat 1 as Theo was punted off down to last but one position, but he got his head down and managed to claw back up to 16th position. In the Pre Final, Theo drove well to climb 9 places and finish 7th, and in the Final he went one better to finish 6th.
On Sunday, qualifying was much tighter with less than 0.1s covering the top 5, with Theo qualifying in 4th (only 0.04s off pole man). However, once again Heat 1 proved to be problematic with Theo dropping down to 8th. In the Pre Final, all kids drove fantastically to deal with the rain coming down midway through the race whilst they were all on slicks! And despite a bad first lap where he fell back to 11th, Theo managed to climb back up to 8th. If only I had trusted Theo’s judgement and gone for “Inters” for this race, the outcome could have been so much different. This is why, with the weather threatening to rain again for the Final, I felt Theo should choose what tyres to run in the final…
Having set up the kart for rain and running low inters (as did half the grid!), we were hoping for some rain during the Final, but it didn’t come!! Had we made a huge mistake?? Inters were certain to be considerably slower in such conditions! However, despite being 0.8s off the front running pace (thanks to having too much grip!), Theo drove one of the best races of his life, battling with 2 other karts which were on slicks for almost the entire race – they would destroy him down the straights, and he would get them back again through the corners (it was nail-biting for all the parents of the kids involved, as we laughed about later). Theo managed his tyres well and held the challengers off right up to the end to claim a well deserved 5th. Once again he showed that, thanks to his smooth driving style, he is peerless when running on inters.
What a shame that we were taken out in Heat 1 on Saturday, as otherwise Theo would have finished in the top 4 or 5 overall, but IFs and BUTs…
Anyway, a huge thanks to Jordan and Lewis Hall of Virtus Motorsport for all their hard work and support. They got the best out of Theo, and it was enjoyable working with team mates Oliver Bearman and Frankie Taylor all weekend. Thanks also to Dan, James and Grant at ZipKart for the awesome kart.