Round 4 of the Club 2000 championship held at Red Lodge Karting took place on the 1st April 2023. Once again, the UK weather would make for very tricky conditions with a cold, damp spring morning. Once again, it would be a large entry and for the first time the Honda Cadets were doing rolling starts.
The morning was definitely wet, the weather was threatening rain all day with plenty of drizzle and spitting making life difficult. Again, there was no warm up session and it was straight in to qualifying.
Qualifying
For qualifying, it was relatively easy. It was wet so we stuck a wet set up on. This worked quite well. With a fastest time of 52.074, this would be enough to see Riley line up 3rd on the grid.
Heat 1
The first heat was still damp, we left the wet set up on the kart. Racing in the heat was fairly uneventful, with the grid finishing in the same position they started. This meant Riley was 3rd throughout with a best time of 48.394.
Heat 2
Over lunch, it was torment, will it rain, will it not, do we go full dry or stay wet. After a track walk, we chose to go full dry setup. This was definitely the right choice, the track was bone dry. It was however, a very cold track. This meant that it took a while for the slicks to warm up and switch on. Due to the time it took for the tyres to warm up, Riley lost a fair amount of time to the leaders but with a best time of 44.332 still managed to come home 3rd again.
Heat 3
For heat 3 we switched back to the wet tyres, but left the dry set up applied. This was a bit of a gamble, they seemed easier to switch on, and after watching the weather radars, and the juniors who were out before us started spinning on the slicks towards the end. With the tricky conditions though, slicks would have been the right choice. When Riley came in at the end, the wets had just about 2mm of tread left on them. This would be enough if we needed them in the final. Just. Once again, the grid finished as it started with Riley coming home 3rd with a best time of 45.655.
Final
After the weather had threatened a rain pour throughout the afternoon, watching the radar and the big blue patch over us we stuck with the wets. The threatened rain did not arrive though and slicks were the right choice. Fairly uneventful with a 3rd place finish, but the tyres are now fit for the bin. Biggest achievement was not ending up facing the wrong way at turns 2/3 on the first lap! A best lap time of 45.046 was nearly 2 seconds off the fastest time from the only person on slicks.
Conclusion
Once again, very tricky conditions. Dad’s inexperience showed and we both need to work with the conditions as they are and not try to second guess mother nature. It wasn’t all bad though, with surviving lap 1 of the finals, Riley came home in 3rd overall to finally get that trophy again.
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