Tuesday 5th August 2008
South West Karting - Cheddar

Summary

Qualifying
This was just a Super Sprint event with 7 drivers from the club. The event started at 7pm and we had a split qulaifying session of 4 drivers and 3 drivers.

Qualifying
Pos	Driver	Fastest
1	Beresford Mandley	0:26.94
2	Chris Quick	0:28.33
3	Dan Darrell	0:28.55
4	Charlie Atherton	0:28.85
5	Matt James	0:28.90
6	Darren Worlock	0:29.13
7	Dickie Armour	0:29.22

Dickie and Darren both had the same dodgy Kart 11 so this was removed and swapped for the race. Beres put in a masterclass performance to qualify, unsurprisingly, on Pole. Chris and Dan battled it out for the other front row slot, leaving the others not far behind.

It was all fairly even as nobody had raced at Cheddar more than once so there were no drivers with any real track knowledge. Even our track walk beforehand made little difference!

The Race
The race was a complete mix of fortunes, full of thrill and spills!

Darren got a blinding start and jumped from 6th to 2nd only to be bumped into the tyres by Chris! This sent tyres flying across the track. Charlie and Matt took avoiding action and Dickie weaved through the carnage up into 5th. Dan then took out the tyres after a bump and he dropped back whilst waiting for a marshall to free his kart.

Meanwhile Beres disappears in front and slowly pulls out a nice lead. Dickie is in 4th and trying to close down on Chris. Meanwhile Darren has got himself back up into contention after his earlier incident and is tracking Dickie down with Beres closing on Darren to lap him.

Charlie, Matt and Dan have a great tussle, tracking each other and they end up less than a second apart as they cross the line.

Dickie creeps ever closer to Chris lap by lap and is right on him, just as Darren and Beres arrive. Darren drives Dickie's kart out the way and Dickie resists retaliating but with Darren and Beres both past, he has to make up the lost ground to catch Chris. Darren gets Chris on the the long straight and does a great job of not letting Beres past to lap him.

Dickie manages to get past Chris with 1 lap to go and Beres crosses the finish line for the chequered flag and a wonderful trophy.

Race - 40 laps!
Pos	Driver	Fastest
1	Beresford Mandley	0:26.85
2	Darren Worlock	0:27.13
3	Dickie Armour	0:27.43
4	Chris Quick	0:28.26
5	Matt James	0:27.61
6	Charlie Atherton	0:27.75
7	Dan Darrell	0:27.52

It was a great race and everyone agreed the Cheddar track was a good one.

Sunday 27th May 2007
Daytona International Circuit

Summary

The day was a complete wash out! Heavy rain had been forecast and for once the weather forecasters got it spot on. Even the papers the following day had the terrible driving conditions on the roads as front page news!

Somerset Karting Club had 2 teams in the Daytona 500K endurance race and you can see see more team info below.

Daytona has to be one of the most impressive circuits in the UK. The track is just awesome and very technical and the facilities are second to none. The staff are all amazing and very helpful and on a very wet, rainy day they kept their enthusiasm up which certainly helped us as we came back in to warm up after our very wet stints. Food was laid on and it was excellent. Huge thanks to Craig and all his catering staff and to Mike and all his race team staff. All the team at Daytona made what could have been a miserable day; something quite special and great fun.

It was raining as we arrived at the track and it didn't stop all day! And if you've never tried karting in the wet before, just think how tricky it is with slick tyres on!!! Even though there are wet race tyres for karts, it is very normal to use slicks in the wet. It's like rally driving and just great fun!

The race lasted for 367 laps which ended up being just over 9 hours!!! Just click the team name below to see each Team and drivers' lap times:

Somerset Karting Club Team 1

Beresford Mandley Dickie Armour Darren Worlock

Somerset Karting Club Team 2

Jamie Forster Chris Quick Mike Wood Matt James