2024 Club100
Senior LW Sprints
Round 3
Glan-y-Gors
Overview
A new circuit for me. And a journey sponsored by the Royal Borough of Schleppington. Eventually, you'll find GYG between the north Welsh villages of Cerrig-y-drudion & Corwen.
From London, a lovely cottage awaits us thanks to fellow racer Hussain Rashid. However, young Hussain is out injured, so I proudly third-wheel the esteemed and newly anointed C1, Stef Theodorou, and his partner Zita for the race weekend. Where, contrary to forecasts, we get some real good sunshine.
Allowing us to enjoy the beautiful Welsh countryside. The landscapes, truly a sight to behold. Wind farms rotating peacefully in the backdrop. Farm animals peacefully gracing the bounties of grass before them. Zita, mocking us city boys marvelling at "a simple bit of greenery" to and from the racetrack.
A comprehensive track guide for reference.
Format
3x 7-minute heats. Random grids for the heats are released midweek. Novices always grid up towards the rear for acclimatisation. I'm now in Class 2 and start the Round 3 heats in P2, P7 and P14.
The overall results from the heats determine the grid positions for the 12-minute finals. So, whether you're an N-C3, intermediate C2 or experienced C1 racer, it's your average finishing position that determines whether you make the C final, B final, or fastest A final.
You can watch the full coverage back on Alpha Live via YouTube.
Heat 1 (Heat 1) | P2 < P3 // P1 > P1 Class 2
The heat I most dreaded when the grids were generated earlier in the week. Following R1 Buckmore Park, it's another front-row start from P2. Except this time, I have C1 Bryn Alban on pole. Then a whole bag ah red-plates scattered down the grid.
They will surely catch up and pounce. So my approach is simple: maintain the class lead, and minimise positions lost to the most experienced racers in the field.
By virtue of starting on the "anti-pole" side of the grid, I'm down to P3, as whoever started behind Bryn follows him through into P2. That's Kart 75, C2 James Scanlon, into our class lead. I need that back, please.
Firstly, I release a C1 in Ed Barrs into P3. Allowing Barrs to dispatch Kart 75 of second place and more importantly into overtaking reach. For which, I get the elbows out on Scanlon to retake the class lead the very next lap. From Lap 4, I start to build a gap to the field, while staying with the leaders.
"... that's his fourth racing lap of GYG, that is pretty impressive."
GYG is an open circuit, so tow-sensitive. I'm staying within Barrs' tow, which, by the way, feels amazing! Ultimately, though, I think better to size up anything on first instance. They brake later, get on the throttle earlier and have better race craft. So I follow the leaders around, wait for a mistake, which, as C1s, their experience would not offer easily.
Although, into the last lap, Bryn has backed up Ed Barrs into my path to such an extent that I have a look into The Carousel, but again have to think better of it. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, C1 Danté Dhillon joins the party. In Round 1 - Heat 6, Dhillon denied me a first Top 3 finish on the final lap. Not this time!
In the moment, I did not actually know whose last lap advances I elbowed away into the final sector. I just knew what had to be done to cross the line P3. The leading C2 by some distance, too. A sporting thumbs-up for my efforts by Danté on the cool-down lap, a cool gesture as I mark my best result in a sprint heat so far. What a way to do so, in a heat clustered with red-plates.
"That's a good way to open up your racing tally at GYG."
Heat 2 (Heat 7) | P7 < P15 // P5 < P12 Class 2
An absentee means I start the second heat a grid slot up in P7. The benefit of this, of course, is starting on the favoured inside line.
Fat lot of difference that made! I find myself having to hold station up towards Turn 3. Everyone starts to congest themselves on the inside line, a collective quest for authority on exit. Ever the outlier, I dive wide to dictate the corner for myself; hopefully, gain an advantage around the authority seekers. However, I don't gain anything from this, although perhaps I would have lost out more had I followed everyone else. Hash tag poetry.
Alas, I'm down a position from the opening lap. Kart 75, who I dispatched very early into my first heat, is up ahead. I know where I'm quicker, but it's such a difficult track to overtake that it takes a few laps to finally get the move done into Turn 3.
I'm back where I started, but have a charging Tommy Lee following me through.
Textbook move into Turn 3.
Our 2023 Novice Class 3 champion eventually overtakes me exiting Compression Corner. They're clearly faster, so all I'm going to do is use their tow to see this sprint out in P9.
However, the very next lap, I'm nudged sideways from behind at Turn 3. I keep the kart pointing forward, but the engine has bogged down, the pack waving by. Worse, the offending kart continues to block my path on exit - to the point I've deviated onto the grass to resume momentum.
In this difficult heat, all I needed was a Top 10 finish to keep a healthy average points haul. You know, to qualify for another potential A final. So I'm truly frustrated to finish a lowly P15 from that incident.
All I needed was a Top 10 result.
Heat 3 (Heat 10) | P14 < P16 // P12 > P11 Class 2
In retrospect, I have made plenty gains by keeping my cool on the opening lap. Even if it means sacrificing a few positions at the start. Enough experience to inform myself not to try anything clever. Instead, by exploiting the wider space, as I had done in the second heat, but keeping to the bumper of those directly ahead, I left myself vulnerable to any incidents that might occur in front.
And as such, someone keeps a silly nose into a 3-way for the first kink at Spoon. One kart collects another, right into my path. We all spin off track. A healthy P11 up onto the Dragon Straight, now a lowly P17. Some 30 seconds down the road, in a 7-minute sprint. Someone else's misfortune gifts a position back in the closing laps. But I have to defend from another C2 the whole way to the flag.
Successfully, at least. And practice, I might add, for what's about to unfold in the final.
Heat 10 in 60 seconds.
C Final | P2 < P3 // P33 Class 2 overall
The calamities that were the second and third heat here at GYG means an overall lowly start in the C Final. Such a contrast from Round 1, coming off the back of my first ever A Final. From P2, the objective is finish in the Top 2 for promotion to the B Final. From Heat 1, I clearly have the pace.
However, onto the long Dragon Straight for the formation lap, I notice how poor acceleration I have leaving pit lane in comparison to the pole sitter, C2 Russell Cooper. This is going to be a long sprint.
Nevertheless, as the lights go green, I time the leader's dictations off the mark as well as one could desire. I hang the kart around the outside of Cooper into Turn 1 and onto the Dragon Straight to assume the race lead! I've done the first part. Now to try and extend a gap to the field, around a race circuit that is tow-sensitive, in a kart with no top-end.
"Egwuagu on the outside [...] big move on the first corner to take the lead."
Onto Lap 2, I know Russell Cooper is right on my rear, but we have a small gap to P3. Ideally, I'd like some bump-drafting to get clear of the field and ensure our promotion. But perhaps a moment of C Final glory hits the imagination, because Cooper absolutely sends it into Turn 3.
Clipping both inside kerbs, they overshoot and misses the apex. This forces me wide and ultimately allows N-C3 Ben Pickard to leap into the lead from P3. I was not expecting such an advance early onto the race. I'm thinking bigger picture, leading the repechage, opening the steering earlier to optimise cornering speeds and clear the field. Instead, this opens the door for a costly moment of opportunism from behind.
A costly move drops me down from P1 to P5.
Kart 76 still sits in P2, so gained nothing from that move. I'm now out of repechage, as low as 5th at one point. I collect 2-in-1 for 3rd, but then have to defend hard from C2 Charlie Summers.
At multiple points, Summers gets me. I get them back multiple times, to their frustration. Creating a train behind us. They're thinking the bigger picture, for which I am no longer in a position in this kart to fulfil. The leaders are too far now.
Unbeknownst to Summers, I have no top-end. So the best I could do from here is maximise my own points tally for the day. And while Kart 59 eventually gets by with a few laps to go, a penalty for exceeding track limits in their efforts to get by drops Summers down the order. So I maintain P3 in the classifications.
On the defence at GYG.
Top 3 finish for the first time in a sprint heat, in the opening heat, at a new circuit. All undone by takeouts in the other two heats. A below-average points haul qualifies me for the C Final. Concluded in a kart with no top-end at a slipstream-sensitive track, repechage unattainable as the race unfolded.
So, converse to the opening accolades and appraisals from Heat 1, this round also reflects the first time I dropped back from my starting position in every session. Not a feat I wish to repeat again. Or allow.