Just So win, Steel crack and Wolfie cheat!
November 2009
With the Club100 silly season now in full swing, there are rumours putting Ministry’s Jordan Hill at Team Red Steel or Red Steel’s Lee Clackett at Ministry and even Jakins and Butler not taking a sabbatical and staying at Red Steel after all. Elsewhere, Andy Baker has signed a lucrative deal with Galliard as their third driver next year and Target Racing have secured the services of ex Essex TT man Trevor Randall for an undisclosed sum of money and Chris Powell is apparently in negotiation with Tanked Up Racing.The driver-merry-go-round aside, it was another great day of Club100 racing that saw the first wet Premier race of the season. Having helped Wolfie to their only win of the year in Wales, Kieran McCullough (fresh from finishing 4th in the Easykart World Finals) was bringing the McCullough magic to Target Racing and secured the team’s first pole position. Just So and Red Steel were second and third ahead of Club 16-48, Tanked Up and Wolfie. RBB, Ministry and Galliard were down in 13th, 16th and 17th but fairing better than Slipstream who were way down in 20th. After two consecutive pole positions, the clean shaven Jordan Hill was disappointed to be so far back.
McCullough took Target into an early lead with Red Steel in hot pursuit. Just So dropped to 4th behind Tanked Up while further back Club16-48’s Phil Kendall, having made an initial good start, was punted off. Galliard was also a first lap casualty. It would be the first of many excursions off course for Club16-48 in what would prove to be a very long morning.
The top 4 remained largely unchanged for the opening laps. Target were the first of the front runners to pit on lap 10 and remained in contention before their useless team captain buried the kart into the tyres at Conways trying to get past Glen Beard. He would then go on to miss the inboard several times and then slide into the fuel bowser and be forced to do another lap. Chris Bell would later spin in the pit lane in his first stop. These incidents cost the team nearly 2 laps and potentially the win. All done deliberately of course to make the race more entertaining!
RBB were making good progress after a lacklustre qualifying effort. Pete O’Connor was relatively pleased with the way the race was panning out.
“We qualified twelfth so I instantly blamed the kart. There was a bolt loose on the track rod so that was good. We made a good start and had a rocket first pit stop for once which is a rarity so we are just hoping for a good finish now.”
By half distance, Jordan Hill was sporting notable designer stubble and Ministry were languishing down in 25th and struggling in the tricky conditions. Club 16-48’s afternoon went from bad to worse as both drivers seemed to spend most of the day stationary and facing the wrong way. A combination of accidents with other drivers and self imposed spins the story of their day.
Team Red Steel, joined today by Marc Craddock in place of Dan Butler, were looking good for yet another win and their lead had started to stretch out like a Yoga teacher’s leotard but an uncharacteristic mistake by sliding down the cut-through in the slippery conditions handed the lead to Just So.
A large number of spins in the tricky conditions had made the final podium slot wide open. Wolfie were looking suspiciously light in third and Target and Tanked Up were also in contention but a coming together for Ant Teal and Chris Bell due to the latter’s brakes being glazed over caused a few sparks to fly in the pits.
In the closing stages, the fully bearded Jordan Hill was still struggling down in 25th. Galliard were also way down the order after a spin from all three of their drivers of Williams, Baker and Prince Edward. Paul Williams:
“We all had one spin each and Andy was rear-ended so the result wasn't all bad. The small bald COC made an unusual gesture at me when I spun and I’m not sure what he was trying to tell me but it looked like he had arthritis in one of his hands. I suppose that's to be expected at his age.”
So it was Just So racing who crossed the line for their third legitimate win of the year. Red Steel netted second despite their lap penalty and Wolfie were third. However, they were found to be 2Kg underweight at the finish and were disqualified, promoting Target Racing to the podium.
Stuart Symonds: "We’re pretty pleased and quite surprised because we were struggling a little bit with the kart but we made a good job of it while everybody else made mistakes. Staying on the track was key today. It was getting a bit tense at one point but after they lost a lap we managed to cruise it home quite easily.”
The trio of Symonds, Ingram and Trott are all confirmed for next year and, as things currently stand with the driver market, are looking favourites for next year’s title (sorry guys!)
Back to the controversy, having been granted immunity by the Club100 world motorsport council, Alex Kapadia came forward and revealed that Tim Hill had told him to race underweight. Despite vigorously denying these accusations, Hill faces a lifetime ban from motorsport and his involvement with certain crap football clubs is also being investigated by the FA. Kapadia:
“I may well be sacked now. I checked my weight before the race, I checked it in the middle part of the race and I checked it again just before I went out at the end and was point four over. I was just point four over the wrong weight limit. I was working from last year’s weight limit. I asked when that had changed and I was told it was changed at the beginning of the year.”
With this apparent admission that he has been racing 2kg underweight all year, the jury is out on this one. Should Wolfie be excluded from the championship and the points redistributed? Should Alex Kapadia be fined? Should Tim Hill be put in a museum? If you have answered yes to any of these questions, please post your comments on the forum.
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