Karting Korner

1 - The Kris Moose Bash.

The 1998 Southern Car Club Karting Trophy got under way in spectacular style at Slipstream Racing in Camberley on the 3rd of December 1997. Sponsored once again by Duckhams Oils, the Kris Moose Bash had attracted a full entry of 14 teams to pit their skills against the twists and turns of the endurance circuit. After everyone had stuffed their faces at the buffet and Jonathan explained the penalties of engagement, practice got under way and with 59 drivers all wanting to squeeze in some track time, the pits were as busy as the M25 on a Monday morning.

It wasn't long before Team TBA put up provisional pole 0.01s ahead of Bullwinkle who were in turn only 0.01s in front of Dolphin M.C. with Basingstoke M.C. and Anythings Available (Southern Car Club) close behind. British Telecom were sixth with British Airways seventh and Computer Associates eighth. BP Oil were languishing in ninth followed by Team Effort and Hart 2 Hart (HART M.C.). The final three were Team Tele (Tele-installs Ltd.), Oxford Instruments and Jimbos Jetsets.

BP Oil then played their wildcard - they had Father Kris Moose on their team. Resplendent in his red Gnomex suit, beard flapping in the breeze, he was obviously used to handling a sleigh in slippery conditions, his standing lap out of the pits was enough to promote BP Oil to provisional second on the grid and his first flying lap saw them on pole. Team TBA had other ideas though and only two laps from the end of the session, they grabbed pole back from BP Oil (Gavin Edmiston, Colin Hutchings, David Mabbott, Mark Wyatt) who headed Bullwinkle, Dolphin and Anythings Available (David Aylmore, Adrian Grinsted, Nick Jenkinson, Jeremy White). Basingstoke dropped to sixth with British Telecom holding seventh ahead of British Airways. Computer Associates looked to have goofed by sending their fastest driver out first and set their best qualifying time on lap six but it was still good enough to hold on to ninth. HART pulled up to tenth and Oxford Instruments to eleventh at the expense of Team Tele and Team Effort. Jimbos Jetsets were proving to be the most consistent runners of the day, unfortunately for them, it was consistently last.

The wily organisers reversed the starting order putting the fastest qualifiers at the back of the grid. Santa had obviously seen the shape of things to come and had quietly disappeared. Going into turn one - last - I was left wondering what fool came up with the bright idea to reverse the grid, I have never seen so many back bumpers in my life.

By lap 50, nearly quarter distance, with BP Oil holding a ten second lead over British Telecom we had overtaken 49 cars! Dolphin, in third, were proving very effective for their first visit with Basingstoke putting their knowledge of Slipstream to good effect in fourth. Team TBA were one lap down in fifth, recovering from an early spin when Lenny Temple was squeezed into the tyres while overtaking a back marker, pushing him down to seventh. Bullwinkle were 0.75s behind in sixth with Anythings Available nearly a lap further back in seventh but a lap ahead of Team Tele who were themselves a lap up on Computer Associates. The top ten was rounded off by Oxford Instruments followed by HART, Team Effort and British Airways, both of whom were already seven laps down on the leaders. Jimbos Jetsets were confirming their lack of qualifying form by bringing up the rear some ten laps down already.

What a difference 30 minutes can make. By half distance, BP Oil had crashed to sixth, four laps down on the new leaders Dolphin, courtesy of two trips to the Doghouse. Team TBA were up to second but were nearly a lap behind - and a full lap up on third placed Anythings Available. Bullwinkle weren't far away and British Telecom, down from second, were 20 seconds further back in fifth. Another of the early leaders to have suffered were Basingstoke in seventh but HART had pulled up to eighth which was to be their highest placing. Team Tele were another two laps down in ninth, a lap ahead of Oxford Instruments. British Airways, Team Effort and Computer Associates were all on the same lap and swapping places through the pit stops. Jimbos Jetsets were improving, having only lost another four laps in the second quarter of the race.

So what was going wrong ? Generally, just a lack of care, overtaking under yellows, speeding in the pit lane, hitting the cones while entering the pits, etc. The teams who were keeping out of trouble were benefiting from other peoples' mistakes. One team which was particularly badly hit was Oxford Instruments who had no less than four doghouses, three for knocking the balls off the cones entering the pits and one for pushing. Of the seventeen laps they were to drop to the leaders by the end, nearly half were due to penalties.

By three quarters distance, Team TBA had hit the front and were nearly a lap up on Bullwinkle who were just ahead of British Telecom. Twelve seconds back were Anythings Available and Dolphin, separated by only 0.35s. Everyone else was now falling so far back as to be out of contention, Basingstoke in sixth were a lap behind, BP Oil were a further two laps down and Team Tele in eighth were a further two laps back yet. HART, Computer Associates and British Airways were all fairly close then there was a gap of nearly a lap back to the scrapping Oxford Instruments and Team Effort. Tail enders - and first timers - Jimbos Jetsets continued to improve and only lost a further three laps to the leaders as they learned their way around.

As the teams ran up to the finish, third placed Bullwinkle found themselves in the Doghouse for 'retaliation' which lost them the place allowing Dolphin up to third and British Telecom into fourth behind the victorious Team TBA and second placed Anythings Available. Basingstoke were sixth ahead of BP Oil who were five laps up on Team Tele. HART came home ninth, thirteen seconds ahead of Computer Associates who were comfortably in front of British Airways, Oxford Instruments and Team Effort. Jimbos Jetsets managed to hold on to last in their first event but showed considerable improvement as time went on.

First placed Team TBA each received 5 litres of Duckhams QXR, second placed Anythings Available got Duckhams jumpers and third placed British Telecom made off with Duckhams polo shirts in addition to their trophies from Slipstream Racing.

Once again, thanks to Gary, Jonathan and all the marshals at Slipstream for a great evening, to Eddie and his wife Hazel for the food - which seems to have gone down very well - and of course to our sponsors, Duckhams Oils for their continued support.

2 - The Valentine.

Yes, we're thinking about the next one already. Set for the 11th of February 1998 at Slipstream Racing in Camberley, The Valentine will be the second round of The Southern Car Club Karting Trophy. Using our already proven format of a two hour endurance race for teams of 3 - 5 drivers we have decided to run the buffet again and have been able to keep the cost the same as the Kris Moose Bash despite a price rise at Slipstream - the VAT man cometh. Regs will be forthcoming soon but if you are entering a team, please get your entries in A.S.A.P.

3 - Sandown Park.

Southern Car Club was able to put two teams together at short notice for a four hour endurance race at Sandown Park on the 14th December. The race, which raised £750, was in aid of Radio Mercury's, Operation Santa Claus appeal.

There were twelve teams in all, split into three classes, Juniors and Seniors, made up of members of the Karting at Sandown In-Kart Club and Visitors like ourselves. The juniors - some of whom race in Champions of the Future - proved to be lethally quick, which left the rest of us hoping that their mother's would call them in when it got dark. Unfortunately, they didn't so Southern 1 came home in fifth, the best visitors with Spare Parts half a lap behind in sixth, Southern actually only lost their fourth place in the last fifteen minutes after a very hard fight. In fact, the two Southern teams beat many In-Kart Club entries.

Southern 1 had snuk in a 'ringer' in the shape of Adam Pearce who turned in the second fastest lap of the day at 50.18s. One of the In-Kart Club juniors, there is nothing junior about the way he handles a kart. I suspect that Southern's result would have been rather poorer without him.

I have received some 'Competitors Reports' from The Kris Moose Bash which I have included below, the first is from team twelve, British Airways:

This was the second endurance event that we have contested, but only two of the original team returned to try their luck, the two new members were complete novices who had not even sat in a kart before, considering this they did very well indeed to slowly chip away at their lap times as the evening went on.

We qualified right in the middle of the pack at eighth position, so the change round of faster teams to the rear of the grid did not make much difference to us.

We were running a fairly consistent 6th during our first stint, only to be caught with a 'Doghouse' penalty for "Overtaking under a Yellow". The guilty driver tried in vain to claim colour blindness was the cause, but this was not accepted by the marshals or his team mates, so he was forced to compensate by buying the tea for the rest of the night.

We later picked up another penalty for pushing, which put us back yet more places, and after a stronger final few stints we eventually moved up from 13th to 11th.

All in all it was a great evening and was enjoyed by all of us. We will almost certainly be returning to try again as soon as the opportunity arises.

Ian Stewart - British Airways

The second is from team fourteen, the victorious Team TBA:

Lenny Temple started off, and with the grid reversed managed to pull himself up to 5th place, ahead of BP Oil. Then there was the tangle with one of the slower drivers, as you know, because you over took him, which put him down to 7th place.

Next up was Matthew Mitchell who managed to keep it on the track and move up one place in his 30 lap stint, Dave Kattanach was the 3rd driver and spent a good 20 laps playing bumper cars with the rest of the field before being told to cool it by anxious teams mates. It all went to Dave's head, when handing over to me he stuffed the cones in the pit straight and put us in the Doghouse.

I rejoined still in 6th and after a good stint of 40 laps managed to pull TBA up the leader board to 2nd place. Lenny went out next, kept it steady and fuel stopped, after which Matthew came out in 3rd place. After all the fuel stops we were only 1.5s behind 2nd who in turn was tailing 1st place. Matt kept cool and waited for about 25 laps before watching 1st and 2nd tangle and taking them both on the inside at the start/finish corner. Dave took over shortly after which put us back in 3rd place but after the driver changes found himself leading the race for TBA. TBA thought "yes here we go" but the doghouse was looming for them once again. "Doghouse Dave" as we all now call him negotiated the cones on his DC, but forgot to take his foot off the gas in the pits, locked up sideways and nearly ran me over, Pete's in the doghouse again ! We dropped down to 2nd. I completed 20 laps before handing back over to Len who had another 20 laps solid drive, increased our advantage and then handed over to me just to punish the opposition in a last drive. We were pushing 2 laps ahead by the time the chequered flag came out. Yeehar !

Pete.

The third and final report is from Richard Quayle of Computer Associates, team six:

There is no justice in this world - I believe we finished tenth. If we could have cloned Lynda Venner I'm sure CA would have been proudly on the podium. The omens were not good, when I was involved in a five car shunt on the way to the venue (not my fault I hasten to add). I strongly contested our sentencing to the Dog House on the first driver change, but after it was pointed out I was in the pit lane without a helmet, I retreated sheepishly.

Mini is still suffering from a whiplash from some over zelous driving and has probably been put off for life - she was upset when she discovered the carts don't have 10 stack CD systems; Nigel Stonham, Jane and Linda however are keen to avenge the nine teams that beat us.

Richard Quayle

Thanks to Ian, Pete and Richard for taking the time to put finger to keyboard and let us know how they got on. If no-one tells me what they did I will have to resort to making it up as I go along so get scribbling, but remember, I was there as well so if I suspect any protecting of the guilty, names will be named - mercilessly.

And Finally !

By the time we get back to Slipstream in February for The Valentine, they should have their fleet of new race karts ready for us. They are being assembled now. These new machines will all feature a self adjusting brake - which may not seem like much but they are a vast improvement over the manually adjusted type. See you there.