A gay name but a good drive
March 2010 |
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Qualifying saw veterans Lucid Initiatives take the pole ahead of the very rapid looking Gaucho Productions. BIX2 did qualify third in class but were one of 11 teams that were disqualified for overtaking under yellow flags in practice – Dyll Davies apparently not seeing the yellow flag and spinning off. Team Pikey Racing also went of courtesy of a puddle at the end of the straight, seriously damaging their rear end.
BGID made it two old timers in the top 3 with third on the grid ahead of Keen as Mustard (formerly known as Lotus Power) who had recruited Club100 returnee Paul Summers. The Pikey’s were well down the order; another team guilty of a practice misdemeanour.
Having dominated the opening two races of last season, Lucid Initiatives season went down hill. This was something Paul Bacon was keen to avoid this year and taking pole for the first race was a much needed confidence booster.
“This is where we started last year and it all went wrong after that. Hopefully we won’t have a repeat of last year but time will tell. Things certainly can’t be any worse than last year. The kart is wonderful and we didn’t get anything changed in practice but there was a horrible moment in qualifying when someone went off down the hill and it started raining after that so I thought I had blown pole because it was getting quite greasy so I’m absolutely delighted.”
After the morning rain the track was pretty much dry by the time the race started and it was Lucid Initiatives that held the lead at the start ably followed by BGID and Keen as Mustard. These 3 exchanged places in the early laps and it was great to see BGID back up the front again. Traffic played a part early on and BGID and Lucid took it in turns to nip past the other at the hairpins lap after lap. BIX2 were making stellar progress through the field and, coupled with their work in the pits, found themselves mixing it with the leaders after only half an hour. However, a spin and a black flag from Dyll Davies later on in the afternoon would drop them out of contention for the win.
By half distance, Gaucho Productions were looking favourites with a comfortable 27 second lead over Keen As Mustard. Lucid Initiatives were still in the mix but didn’t seem to have an answer for the front two. Gaucho’s Alistair Weaver was happy with how the race was progressing:
“Well we qualified second but I made a terrible start because I was a little bit circumspect going into turn one because it had been raining and people just came down the inside of me so I got pushed out in the first corner. After that I just settled down and got on with it. It’s difficult in the first race because there are a lot of novices and a lot of people learning their way so it’s important to try and knock anybody off. We tend to go well in the wet so I’m hopeful for today. We’ve never been on the podium so that has got to be our aim for this year.”
Pat Nicholls was back for another year of abuse in the Inters championship and it looked like his team’s luck might be changing in the early stages. After a solid qualifying performance, the team lead for a handful of laps before black flags for both James Hoskisson and Andy Davies dropped them out of contention. A good recovery drive was thwarted when Davies then got tangled up with some spinning karts and the team had to stop for lengthy repairs.
Having clawed their way back up through the field after Dyll’s qualifying blunder, BIX2 lost a potential podium when their noble leader again decided that the colour black might go nicely with his spanking new white and pink outfit. Mistakenly believing the penalty board had the number 1 rather than a number 7, he repeatedly drove past the black flag before realising his mistake and being forced to serve a longer stop and go penalty. This lead to calls of “You can’t be serious” and “what kind of call was that?” from the newly dubbed John McEnroe of Club100 (Copyright Paul King 2010).
Drive Fast Don’t Crash were having a competitive showing and looked on for some good points. Gaucho Productions’ sterling performance early on came to nought after an incident dropped them way down the order and left them having to recover, which was never going to be easy with the pace of the new race leaders.
With the demise of BIX2 and Gaucho Productions and with Lucid Initiatives and BGID not able to match their pace, Keen As Mustard stretched their lead to over a lap. Lucid Initiatives and BGID Racing followed them home and took the final two spots on the podium. PB2.com, Drive Fast Don’t Crash and BIX2 rounded out the top 6, the latter recovering well after a catalogue of problems.
John Goddard was very modest about his team’s performance.
“The race was actually quite easy. Every time I got in the kart I didn’t have to do an awful lot. My first stint was quite good because I was dicing with about four other teams and managed to get to the front of that group. Dyll put himself into a spin and I had to go onto the grass to avoid him but that worked out well for us. It’s great to win because obviously being the start of the year we had no idea how well we were going to do so this is good.”
