2013-12-09 09:17:19.2
Eddie described the race weekend at Lydd as 'average' after finishing off the podium in the sprint race for the first time this season and seeing his championship lead cut from thirteen points to just three. In the endurance championship, 3Cubed could finish no better than ninth but misfortune from some of their main rivals still saw them move up to sixth in the championship standings.
Saturday
A glorious day welcomed the endurance teams at Lydd for round 3 of the Premier Endurance Championship. Lydd, now running anti-clockwise on a permanent basis, returned to the calendar after a year’s absence.
Eddie admitted to not feeling completely dialled into the circuit during practice and nominated Ian Wilson to qualify. Ian did a solid job to line up 18th out of the 33 kart field.
Ian also did the first stint in the race, followed by Eddie and then Alex Withington doing the last stint. None of the drivers felt completely happy with the kart and, as the race progressed, the kart seemed to develop more and more problems with power.
“When I went out for my last stint, the kart just felt awful.” Explained Eddie after the race. “It had no bottom end and wouldn’t accelerate out of the corners. I was completely swamped by about six or seven karts on my first couple of laps and there was nothing I could do about it.”
Alex Appeared to be struggling to get to grips with the new circuit as well and the team eventually came home a very distant ninth. Despite a mediocre result, they moved back up to sixth in the championship, just 5 points behind the Wolfie team.
Sunday
It was another fine day for the Sprint Race. It looked like it was going to be another strong performance as Eddie annihilated the field in his first heat, pulling out almost a second a lap to win by a huge margin. He followed this up with a second place, just failing to pass Rye House winner, Parm Nijjar, for a second heat win. Things started to unravel in his third heat with a kart that, like the day before, had no power and Eddie struggled home in eleventh position.
Nevertheless, Eddie still lined up fifth on the grid and made a good start to take fourth off the line. An unhelpful tap at the final two turns from Richard Higham dropped Eddie to eighth position but he managed to claw his way back up to sixth at the chequered flag.
“It was a bit of a disappointing end to what started out as a really good day. My last heat was a complete disaster but there was nothing I could do about that. We came out of the pits and immediately followed the pace kart around the short loop so there was no way of me knowing how bad the kart was.
“The final was going OK. I made a good start and really felt that a podium was possible. I knew the guys behind me were probably a bit quicker but it is so difficult to overtake so I felt pretty confident. Richard tapped me going into the double left-hander coming onto the start straight and that effectively ended my chance for another podium. It’s not the end of the world and he came up and apologised afterwards which I respect so there is no problem there. We’ll call it a racing accident.”
After the weekend, Eddie gave his thoughts on the new anti-clockwise circuit.
”It’s not bad. It’s still a nice flowing circuit but I think I preferred it the other way round. The problem with this new layout is that it’s so hard to overtake. The circuit was designed the other way round and the corners reflect that. The bus stops used to be slow on and fast out, which meant that you could out brake someone going in or set them up to out drag them at the exit. Now they are all fast in and there are very few places to pass. You have to reply on people making a mistake.”
