Progress in Wales leads to 'Driver of the Day' award. - 26.04.2009

Easykart: Round 2 at Llandow, Vale of Glamorgan

Saturday

With a tough opening round at Whilton Mill notched up to experience, John was looking to turn things around with a freshly rebuilt engine for round 2 of the Easykart Championship at Llandow.

Saturday morning was thus devoted to running in the engine before getting to work on setup in the afternoon. Unlocking the speed was proving to be quite a task, but it was early days, and the important session is on Sunday afternoon.

Sunday

Patchy early morning rain put a dampener on the early sessions, with standing water making overtaking difficult and the cool track temperatures exacerbating the balance problems from Saturday. Things didn’t look much better after qualifying, as John slotted into 14th position, 0.7s off the pace.

At this point, things started to turn around. A small crack was discovered underneath the exhaust manifold and, by changing that along with altering the setup, the kart was transformed. Combined with some solid, attacking driving, John was able to make significant progress from his disappointing qualifying spot and secure 7th position on the inside of the grid for the final.

The speed apparently unlocked, the kart was kept the same for the final and John made an excellent start to vault into 5th place. The positions remained fairly static in the opening laps as pole man Terry Langley began to stretch his lead and the rest of the top 5 pulled away from the pack.

With the early laps providing a much needed confidence boost after a trying weekend, John began to settle in and home in on possible overtaking opportunities. After two good, decisive moves in two laps, John found himself in a podium position, albeit a close-fought one.

Approaching the final corner of the race, John found himself sandwiched between Owen Jenman in 2nd and Sam Smithson in 4th. As Jenman moved to cover his line, John was forced to take the long way round the outside. At the same time, Smithson attempted a pass for 2nd and inevitably clipped Jenman. John managed to avoid to incident but lost momentum. A straight drag race to the line followed, with John just losing out and finishing 5th.

After the race, John commented “It was disappointing not to get 3rd but, if at lunchtime someone told me I would come 5th and enjoy such a strong showing, I wouldn’t have believed them!”

Making such strong progress after qualifying, with a fastest race lap just 4 hundredths of a second off the pace, was rewarded with the Driver Of The Day award from series promoter John Vigor.

The target for round 3 will be to solve the qualifying problems and be fighting at the front from the start.