2013-12-09 09:17:19.2
IMSD Racing stormed to a commanding 33 second victory at Lydd yesterday, putting an end to the team’s jinx at the Kent circuit.
The team came to Lydd trailing championship leaders HB Racing by 40 points and desperately needed a win after being hampered with reliability problems at Glan-Y-Gors.
Not wanting to take any risks, team leader Stephen Deuchar, decided to get the kart tested during practice, as he was not completely confident with the mixture. This proved to be a very wise choice as the test driver agreed that there was a potential progressive problem arising.
The race started in wet conditions, although the rain had stopped during practice. Erring on the side of caution, Eddie decided to start the race in his wetsuit.
Making a great start from the back of the 33 kart grid, Eddie made several places up on the opening lap. Over the next 10 minutes, Eddie continued to carve his way through the field, getting as high as fourth when he was pulled in for a strategic early stop.
Staying out for a further 25 minute stint Eddie continued to make progress, lapping consistently quickly despite suffering with traffic.
Ian Miller took over, rejoining in seventh position. Ian continued the quick and consistent laps, moving up to a net third place by the time Stephen took over.
By the time of the second round of driver changes, the team were running comfortably in the top 2 and gaining rapidly on the leaders. When Eddie went out for his second stint, he took over half a second out of the leaders lap times for most of the stint. This meant that when Ian and Stephen had their respective second stints in the kart, they just had to maintain position.
Ian Miller took over and continued to put in great lap times. Despite losing a huge amount of time stuck behind Team SW2D, he managed to maintain position and increase their net result.
The team’s only worry came in Stephen’s last stint. A very rapid SW2D were desperate to unlap themselves. A communications malfunction (i.e. no chalk for the pit board) meant that the team couldn’t communicate the situation to Stephen clearly. Using a primitive system of hand signals and the universal language of pointing, meant that Stephen misunderstood letting SW2D through and instead thought that he was defending his lead!
He nevertheless held his nerve and crossed the line to win by some 33 seconds. This was the teams first win in the Inters championship and move them to within 5 points of HB Racing (who eventually finished down in eighth after suffering a drive chain failure).
