We headed to the south coast this weekend for round three of the NKC 2025 championship, at Clay Pigeon Raceway in Dorchester, Dorset. It was a very hot and dry weekend.
The race weekend is run over three days, Friday & Saturday practice, a race on Saturday evening, two further races on Sunday followed by a final Sunday afternoon. The conditions for the weekend were good, sunny and very hot all weekend. Sunday was slightly cooler with patches of cloud cover at times. Clay Pigeon Raceway is a great track with a flowing layout and really enjoyable to drive, it’s a drivers circuit.
In Friday practice we followed our usual race programme, experimenting with different set-ups. We spent alot of time testing sprocket sizes and tyre pressures until we were happy we were on the right set-up for the conditions. In the last session of the day our steering seemed to drop and get very heavy, so that evening we replaced our steering column, both track rods and laser aligned the front to give us the best start possible on Saturday morning.
Saturday practice went well and we progressed through the day tweaking set-up ready for our first race on Saturday evening. We were topping the time-sheets throughout the day, always in the top 2, this gained us some attention from the bigger teams we are competing against, and one thing they hate is being beaten by a privateer team such as ours.
Whilst out in session three, one of these big teams, had a driver that wasn’t quick and lost control in-front of us. We accidentally ran into his rear bumper while he re-gained control, it wasn’t a large or hard hit and it didn’t even move him off his line. We then went to over-take him as he had lost momentum and was much slower than before. As we passed him he drove into the side and rear of our kart, pitching us in the air and damaging his front end. The team, as always, went to the scrutineers to moan about how unfair it was. Karting is a non-contact sport so we too were called in to give our account of the event. We had GoPro footage, eye witness accounts. The NKC deemed it an aggressive over-take and we were going to receive a penalty. The problem with a lot of the karting championships these days is the big teams have far too much power and always get what they want. Funny enough they wouldn’t let us see their GoPro footage, funny that, as it would show the same as everyone else’s, that their driver lost control and is blaming everyone else. If their drivers were not trained to just take people out rather than clean racing it would be much better, one thing these teams hate is being beaten. When we went to see their kart they didn’t even have a GoPro on, so maybe the reason we weren’t allowed to see the footage is because it didn’t exist. Due to the huge numbers at the NKC their judgment has become inconsistent and a worrying trend is with the bigger the team, the louder they shout the more they get away with. We spoke to many people throughout the weekend and we were not the only ones un-happy with handling of such big events.
We were given the penalty of starting every race from the back of the grid. Very unfair and very inconsistent with other incidents that had happened with other drivers throughout that weekend. When we asked for their reasoning we were told that they run the championship and they can do what they want…. not really an answer is it?
We continued our race weekend knowing that we were starting in 31st place for every race. Jacob was determined not to let it ruin his weekend and we went about our racing.
Race 1 – We started 31st, had a good start and immediately started picking off places. We made up 19 positions and finished 12th.
Race 2 – We started 31st, had a good start again and immediately started picking off places as we did in race 1. We made up 14 positions and finished 17th.
Race 3 – Can you guess…. yes we started 31st, kept out of trouble and again started working our way through the grid. We made up 17 places and finished 14th.
Remarkably we almost scored enough points to get into the A-Final, but we were just under and started the B-Final in 4th position. We were allowed to start in 4th because the penalty was for the heat races not the final as the starting positions are based on the points you’ve scored. Jacob was determined to get into the A-Final so needed to do well. He had a good start, getting into first briefly before settling into second place where he drove well and finished in second, gaining his access into the A-Final.
It was an amazing achievement and proves how well Jacob drives. Every single overtake he did throughout those races were 100% clean, showing the calibre of driver he is.
Final – Started 32, had a good start, kept out of the trouble and drove well, again on a mission to make up as many places as he an. He made up 14 places and finished 18th…. an amazing result considering he started last in every race and there were 80 drivers competing in total.
It was a tough but enjoyable weekend. We had out most over-takes ever in an NKC race weekend, fastest laps, scored the most points of the season and made the A-Final in only our 3rd time of trying as a Senior Rotax driver.
Only a two and a half week break then we head up to Sunderland for round four at Warden Law.
