It’s back to back race weekends for us as we kick off the race weekend at Forest Edge in Dorchester for the second round of the NKC Championship.
This is our first race meeting at Forest Edge so alot to learn in the practice days before Sunday’s main races. The weekend consisted of Friday & Saturday practice with three races and a final on Sunday.
Friday and Saturday testing went well. We spent our sessions wisely adjusting kart set-up, gearing, jetting and tyre pressures until we found a good set-up that worked well at that circuit. In each of the sessions we were hitting consistent and improving lap times.
NKC has random grids so there was no qualifying on Sunday. We headed to the pre-grid for our first race starting in 12th position. The weather is mixed and after having the kart set-up for wet had to quickly change to a dry set-up as the rain had stopped and the track was quickly drying.
The start went well and the grid was very competitive, as before we are competing against some big teams and local drivers who know the circuit inside out. We pushed on and ended the race in 12th place out of 30 drivers.
Race two we were starting on the second row in 4th, this time the conditions were very wet. We made a good start and by the first corner was in second place, we raced hard, held our own and kept that place for just under half the race, then a slight mistake in the chicane cost us a place but we kept at it and finished the race in 4th.
Our final race, race 3, before being placed into one of the finals (A or B), we were starting in 25th place on the grid. Again kept out of trouble at the start making up places and then raced hard working our way through the field. We made 8 overtakes throughout the race to finish in 16th.
In our first three races we scored 118pts this was enough to make it to the A-Final which was a great achievement and now two out of two. Our starting position was 18th.
Five minutes before the start the heavens opened again and we had to swap from a dry setup to wet while on the pre-grid. As a privateer team this is difficult as with limited time we can’t change everything over to a full wet set-up. With the essentials done we headed out for our final race of the day.
We made a good start, holding our position, again raced hard, constantly swapping places and battling. We finish the race in 16th position which is our best finish so far in this championship.
To finish 16 out of 74 drivers in only our second competition race at the NKC is a great achievement. We will be pushing hard to do even better in the next round which is being held at Mansell Raceway.
We scored a total of 186 points this weekend and are now 18th in the championship out of 78 drivers…. well done Jacob, a brilliant start to the championship.
A big thank you to the organisers of the NKC. They really do run these events well.
You can watch the streams of all the weekends racing on the Karting Live YouTube channel by clicking here.
To find out more about the NKC and to view race results and championship standings click here.
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