2013-12-09 09:17:19.2
Eddie hailed today’s sprint race at Buckmore as his best performance yet after a great performance in all of his qualifying heats and the final saw him nearly break into the front ranks.
Eddie started from fourth in his first heat and a confident and aggressive drive saw him up to second early on. He then proceeded to follow championship front man Rob Hart and pulled away from the rest of the pack.
His second heat, Eddie started down in eleventh and made a great start to get into the top 10 at the start. Moving up the order, he got involved in a brilliant battle with Stuart Symonds. The two exchanged places a number of times but Stuart ultimately pipped Eddie at the line but was demoted two places due to an earlier penalty, which promoted Eddie into sixth.
“I really enjoyed my battle with Stuart. I raced very close to him at Bayford last year and he is always great to race against. Very aggressive but very fair. It was great fun.”
Starting 10th in his last heat, Eddie made a slightly more cautious start but soon started picking off the drivers in front. After only a couple of laps, Eddie was up to sixth and challenging a chain of karts in front. Despite making several attempts to pass the struggling Liam Hegarty, Eddie could not find a way past. A near disaster struck on the last corner of the last lap when Hegarty dived inside a slower kart and drifted wide. Eddie took full advantage and passed the both of them but found himself on the grass when Hegarty refused to concede his place, which allowed Trevor Randall and two others to take advantage, dropping Eddie to ninth.
“I was not very happy after that heat. Liam was obviously struggling with the handling and was all over the place. He went well wide going up the hill and I managed to get passed him down the inside. I was in front and took the line but he just came right across and pushed me onto the grass on the right hand side. I took every ounce of my strength to keep the kart pointing in the right direction and how I didn’t spin is a miracle.
“I must say I thought it was very unsporting and I would have expected a driver of his level to be better than that. Especially when you consider the number of times I’ve heard him shout at other drivers.
“He has the words ‘Hit Man’ embroidered on the back of his overalls. I think ‘Tit Man’ would have been more appropriate today!”
Nevertheless, these solid performances put Eddie 13th on the grid for the A final.
Making a good start, Eddie was immediately on the pace and challenging well in the top 10. Losing places only to Stuart Symonds and the flying Kieran McCullough, Eddie was running comfortably in the top 10. A hard charging rival came close to taking Eddie out on a couple of occasions, but no serious damage was done other than the loss of a couple of positions.
Still, Eddie drove consistently and quickly and was easily running in the top train of karts to finish a sprint career best eleventh at the flag, beating local rival James Winslow in the process.
After the race, Eddie said “This was a great day. I was on the pace from the start of the day and gave a number of the top drivers something to think about. This was definitely the best I’ve ever driven.”
Eddie will be back in action at Buckmore again tomorrow for the Lance Yeomans Memorial race with IMSD Racing.
