April 2024

VEGA Tyre Test

In April all cadet racers must switch from the Dunlop SR3 tyres to a new tyre company, VEGA tyres have a long history in the sport and won the new contract to supply the new tyres for the next 3 seasons.

To understand the tyres and how they work on the kart we ran a tyre test session in early April, 4 cadets of differing experience levels attended with Jade to test and give feedback on the new rubber.

I managed to test both the wet and dry tyres, as the most experienced in the group I spent a lot of time on the dry slick, giving the team feedback when running in different configurations.

It was valuable experience allowing me to get the kart working well prior to the next round at Shenington. We also did a bit of media training, whilst fun, I think I need to work a bit harder on talking in front of the camera.

Daytona Sprint Race

I had a quick return trip to Daytona at Milton Keynes. In April too, my sister, Georgina is just starting out as a Bambino and is getting some training by the team that taught me.

The same day there was a cadet sprint race so I thought I would enter that whilst waiting for her. It was nice to race there again, the sprint race is just a 10 minute qualifying and 20 minute race, qualifying on pole I took the start and never looked back, in fact I found myself racing with the junior pack. 

Sim training is a great way to learn a new track, I am looking to go to PF International in Lincoln in May so I took the opportunity to go to Kartsim at Silverstone and get the feel for the track before I go. It was a great session, and I learnt a lot.

Shenington Winter Cup Round 4

Round 4 at Shenington and we started the weekend to fantastic sunny weather, little wind and a dry track.

I was excited to get on with testing on Saturday and get the kart setup perfectly for the race, there were seven sessions, the times just kept improving, the tyres are really helping, the grip comes in much earlier than the Dunlop’s I am used to which means that you can push much earlier in each session.

Dad tried different gearing and setup changes and I set a new personal best lap time of 50.78 seconds. A big improvement from my previous of around 0.5s.

It was a good day, and I was happy with the results, I was struggling to find any more time however in the last session, whilst racing hard with my team mate Alessandro we collided causing quite a bit of damage to both karts , Dad had about 2 hours of repairs, bent steering column and track rod, side pod repair and chassis had to be jigged.  

He got it all ready with the help of the team for Sunday though. Alesandro’s Kart had quite a bit of body damage but no mechanical issues.

Race day was dry and sunny, the practice session was important to check that the kart was ok after the previous days damage. All seemed ok and u was quite quick.

Heat 1

Started in P3 but couldn’t quite get on the pace of the front runners, finished P8

Heat 2

Started P1 but took a bit of a hit on the start dropping to 3rd by turn 1, finished 7th, new PB but again couldn’t keep up with the top runners

Heat 3

Really struggled, started in P9 but couldn’t get past or make any progress finished P9

Final

Talking to Ross the engine builder we were considering a change of engine for the final, my engine has a lot of hours and just doesn’t seem to be giving enough power now, in the end we thought it better not to and run with our engine as it has a know performance.

Starting in 9th, I managed to work up to 7th, nearly beating my PB again but ending only 0.8s off the fastest lap by the winner Chester Forkes.

We probably should of changed the engine changed but it was still a good race, showing good pace and racing hard with Louis Williams-Mabbs.

The result leaves me 5th in the championship (9th with dropped scores).