This weekend is our 3rd back to back weekend of racing in what is a very busy month of June. This weekend we are in Devon for round 3 of the NKC championship at Dunkeswell Raceway.
This is our first visit to Dunkeswell Raceway, so alot to learn in the practice sessions before Saturday evenings first heat race. The weekend consisted of Friday & Saturday practice with a race on Saturday evening with a further two 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. Jacob was learning the track very quickly.
NKC has random grids so there was no qualifying. We headed to the pre-grid for our first race starting in 20th position. The weather is hot, sunny and dry. The only downside is that the regulations state we must race on the same race slicks for three rounds, so this weekend we are using very tired tyres.
The grid is very competitive, we made a good start and Jacob pushed hard, making some great over-takes finishing the race in 12th place out of 34 drivers.
Race two we were starting on the fifth row in 10th position. We lost a few positions at the start. The race was full of crashes, yellow flags and finally a red flag stopping the race, but Jacob pushed hard and raced hard on to finish in 14th. Unfortunately we were given a 10 second penalty for over taking on yellow flags, which we had video proof didn’t happen, but were told what they say is final and there is nothing we can do about it. It’s very inconsistent and threw away an A-Final start because it dropped us down to 24th!.
Our final race, race 3, we were starting in 14th place on the grid. Again kept out of trouble at the start making up places and then raced hard to only make up one place. We finished the race in 13th.
In our first three races we scored 101pts this was enough to make it to the A-Final but because it was a tie with another driver (after our stupid penalty) it went to lap times and we were a thousandths of a second slower so pushed us into the B-Final.
We started the B-Final in pole position. Made a good start keeping our first position and opened up a gap before yet another crash and another red flag stopping the race. 20mins later we got going again and on the re-start lost a position dropping us into 2nd. Jacob wasn’t going to have that so within a lap and a half got his first place back and never looked back, pulling away from the rest of the pack and getting fastest lap, winning the race which is our first win in the NKC.
This means that we get through to the A-Final, which we are pleased about as this keeps it 3 out of 3 for the finals. We start in position 31, make a good start and race hard, consistently going three wide into the corners which is never going to end well, and it didn’t. Our rear wheel was hit throwing our kart in the air causing a broken steering column and track rod. Jacob limped back to the pits in a kart that was obviously not drivable. This was also a first for us at the NKC with a DNF.
We scored a total of 135 points this weekend and dropped to 29th in the championship out of 80 drivers, all due to a penalty that was incorrect…. We will come back stronger for the Northern rounds, starting next month.
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.
To read more news articles please visit our news archive.
