2013-12-09 09:17:19.2
Rye House played host to the final round of the 2008 championship and Eddie did enough on Sunday to secure second place in the sprint championship ahead of Lee Kemp. The endurance race on Saturday was fairly successful, the team finishing seventh despite losing a lap due to another exhaust failure during the race.
Saturday
Looking to end their relatively disappointing season on a high, 3Cubed arrived with slightly renewed vigour after an impressive showing at Whilton Mill. Despite not feeling confident about his pace in practice, Eddie once again qualified and lined up a respectable 9th out of the 27 kart grid. The entire field was separated by just over a second.
Ian Wilson, starting his last race before he retires, took the start but dropped back slightly into the mid-field. It soon became obvious that there was a problem and the team had to execute emergency repairs on the exhaust at their first pit stop, dropping them off the lead lap. Alex took over for the second stint before handing back to Eddie.
The trio recovered well after their early race problems to secure seventh in class and finished the season in equal ninth place in the championship.
Sunday
Eddie only needed to finish 15th or higher in the sprint race to be assured of second in the championship behind Parmveer Nijjar. His day got off to a bad start when he was taken out of his first heat while running second. His second heat was better going from 15th on the grid to fourth on the opening lap and eventually finishing third. Another third place in his last heat put Eddie 12th on the grid for the A final.
Making a cautious start, Eddie tried to avoid the usual mid-field violence and settled for driving a conservative race to ninth place, easily enough to prevent rival and friend Lee Kemp from taking the runner up spot. Kemp finished second on the road but was dropped to third after overtaking under yellows. Eddie was under whelmed by the race result but happy with his season’s performance.
“Obviously I was gutted to lose the championship the way I did but I can’t complain too much. This was my first season in this format of sprints and I never expected to even win a race let alone be fighting for the championship so I’m relatively happy with second place. It has been a great year and the rivalry between myself, Parm, Lee and Guy has been great. We all get on, there is a lot of mutual respect and we’ve all become good friends over the course of the year. They are all a great bunch of guys - really nice blokes – and I look forward to racing with them again next year.”
Eddie will now take a 3 month break while he recovers from a serious rib injury that has plagued him all season. He recently had to turn down an offer to race in the Johnny Herbert Karting challenge against a number of notable racing drivers and celebrities.
