Who are the people?
July 2010 |
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It was a new team called “We are the people” who took pole position. More of an Intermediate team, even by their own admission, they nevertheless, took the pole ahead of the seemingly on-form Akita V2. Pantera, Release The Fury and The Jabolers rounded out the top 5. Kam racing were quite a long way down the order and were running without Justin Buck for this race while he was recovering from a broken leg after a skiing accident.
We are the people’s Richard Smith was not thinking too much in terms of the rookie win prior to the start but was instead focussed on the overall result.
“We should have been booked into the Inters. We’ve never raced together before so they classed us as rookies but we did register ourselves at Inters. We’ll have to speak to JV about it after the race because if we win it probably isn’t fair. I think a podium would be good in Inters but a top ten is what we’ve got top aim for.”
Ross Britten made an excellent start for We are the people and pulled out a commanding lead over Pantera, who jumped into second off the line. After completing a double stint for the leaders, Britten left the track to leave his team mates to take up the challenge for the remainder of the afternoon.
Back to the action and the order at the front remained largely unchanged in the early stages. The top 5 or six teams maintained track position and slowly began to spread out. As usual, it was the relative performance in the pits between teams that dictated the running order.
After the first round of pit stops, Raggo Racing were leading Release the Fury by barely half a second. We are the people were close behind in third and Akita V2 were only a second behind them. The unpredictability of things meant that any one could win.
By half distance, it was release the Fury from We are the people who were leading the pack. Akita V2 were still up there with Pantera and Raggo Racing in the mix as well.
By this stage, the tyres were really starting to go off for a number of teams. Drivers were handling the situation differently; some deciding on a more conservative style to preserve the rubber and others taking a more aggressive approach and driving like a premenstrual mutant bishop in order to close down the gap to slower karts.
Raggo Racing were having a quiet race in the mid-field. They were sporting some rather flashy team t-shirts courtesy of Club100’s very own Pikey – Mr Andy Cowell. Oli Goodacre gave his thoughts on the race.
“We were nineteenth overall and worked our way up. We were leading at one point but the kart has got so much under steer and we are just struggling to drive around it. I think we are on for a fifth place finish maybe. It would be nice to get on the podium but I don’t think we are going to manage that.”
As the race moved into the closing stages the battle intensified between the leaders with only a handful of seconds separating them. Release the Fury closed down the leaders until they were right on their tail. In true cinema style, as they entered the last lap there was less than half a second separating the two. We are the people just managed to hold them off to win by less than a second after 2 and a quarter hours of racing. Pantera Racing picked up another podium position in third to extend their lead in the championship. Akita V2, Raggo Racing and fear Awe We Wacing also scored some valuable points.
We are the people seemed less willing to relinquish their rookie status after the race and were delighted with the win, despite being deserted early in the race by their lead man (who escaped to attend a wedding by the way!)
“Our main man has gone. He was the one who got us up there and we just took it from there really. It was a smooth day and we just kept it pointing in the right direction. I know we said before the race that we shouldn’t have really been a rookie but it’s nice to get the win because it has been a few years since we got a trophy.”
With 4 races down, Pantera still lead the championship. The next stop is Llandow in Wales. There is still a lot to play for.
