2013-12-09 09:17:19.2
Round three of the Premier Endurance championship finally got IMSD Racing on the scoreboard with the trio of Eddie Hall, Ian Miller and Ian Wilson fighting their way from the back of the grid to finish 4th in class and tenth overall.
They originally qualified 17th out of the 28 entrants but were relegated to last on the grid due to Ian Wilson spinning under a yellow flag in practice.
The focus of the team in practice was analysing the fuel consumption. On a track where the karts are at full throttle for about 70 percent of the time, fuel efficiency was paramount.
Ian Miller was nominated to qualify for this round due to his recent test session at the circuit. He set the team’s best grid position of the season - 17th – but as mentioned earlier, they were relegated to the back due to Ian Wilson’s yellow flag infringement.
Eddie again started the race and it was back to the old times of Inters with him carving his way through the field. The team’s decision to save as much fuel paid off. Eddie was one of the last to pit for fuel and was running fifth overall when he finally handed over to Ian Miller.
Miller went out in fifteenth position and put his recent testing experience to good use. Showing much more aggression, Ian continued the good run of form and was starting to threaten the overall top 10 when he handed over to Ian Wilson. There was a slight delay in the pit stop when Ian couldn’t get the fuel cap off, which lost the team a small handful of seconds.
The second set of stints passed without incident. Eddie went out 8th in class and pushed the kart to the limit and handed over to Ian Miller in fifth.
After a good stop, Ian set about cutting the gap to the class leaders. Just before the final driver change, third to fifth place were covered by less than 3 seconds.
Ian Wilson went out for the final leg with 15 minutes to go in fourth position, just over two seconds behind third. Sadly Ian could do nothing to wrestle the final podium position away and settled for fourth.
The team were nevertheless delighted to get a good result after the disappointment of the first two races.
“It was a good day.” Eddie said afterwards. “I mean to come from dead last and finish in the top 10 overall and fourth in class is very encouraging. Without the penalty we could possibly have finished on the podium.
“It was unfortunate for Ian. I didn’t actually see what happened but apparently he spun while there was a yellow flag out. I’m a bit disappointed mainly because the stewards didn’t inform us of this penalty until the grids were posted. Sadly these things happen and we just have to forget about it. Regardless, it was a fantastic result and well deserved!”
