My fundraising karting event at Raceland on Sunday was a huge success! Thank you to everyone who raced, spectated or helped out!
The atmosphere throughout the event was lovely and it was great to see people already starting to mingle before the initial safety briefing! Victor, the race director, provided an excellent, light-hearted briefing before the 30 minute practice session began. All 45 drivers braved the rain and slippery conditions to take part in this session, many people stepping into a go kart for the first time. Minus me being told off for speeding in the pitlane, the practice ran very smoothly considering the conditions!
The 90 minute endurance race then began with team ‘Relight my Tyre’ starting on pole. It was great to see the variety in team tactics with some teams making very early pitstops, and some completing longer stints before stopping. As the race went on, the track dried out allowing everyone to push harder. The lap times continued to decrease and the fastest lap (1:02.040) was set by the Lee from Team Henderson – well done Lee! 7 out of the 14 teams managed to set a sub 1:03 laptime too which was very impressive in itself.
At 3.30pm we gathered around to podium for the announcement of the top three. Congratulations to ‘Relight my Tyre’, who I believe led every lap from start to finish, for their fantastic win!A good fight put in by ‘L.A.D.’ to finish second and third ‘Silver Arrows’. I really enjoyed being back in a kart and driving the last half hour stint for my team, perhaps because I thought we were 6 seconds behind Duncan from L.A.D...turned out we were a whole lap plus 6 seconds behind, oh well! The full results were as follows (love the creativity put into these team names!);
1st – Relight my Tyre 2nd- L.A.D. 3rd- Silver Arrows 4th- Snail 5th-Team Henderson 6th-Cockins Cider 7th-Mumbles Relics 8th-Tigers Suck 9th-Mitchell Davey Fan Club 10th-Dickens Cider
11th-Boy Racers 12th-Carnage 13th-Wacky Racers 14th-Scottish Borders
Off the track, there was also lots going on. Chris very kindly offered to bring his racing simulator along which turned out to be a fantastic piece of kit! It was the perfect idea to keep people entertained whilst off the track so massive thanks to Chris for his generosity. Congrats to Alan Hay for setting the fastest lap around the Spa Francorchamps circuit! The money from the simulator raised a fantastic £60 for the Teenage Cancer Trust.
I’m sure everyone who took part will join me in thanking Raceland and the staff who were so welcoming and friendly throughout. I have always had a great experience at Raceland and love their track, so I was delighted to be able to share this with you all yesterday.
