2023 Club100 Senior Championships
The Club100 Novice (LW) Experience - Season Finale
Round 6
Buckmore Park
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| Photography by @johnnyp5000 |
Overview
The most visited circuit since joining Club100. I've put it on pole position. Set the fastest lap. Pulled away from the pack for over half race distance. And my highest finish here has been 5th place. So perhaps not the most ideal venue for the final round, where I'm behind in the hunt for the championship.
After controversy post Round 5 - Whilton Mill, the gap to rival Sam White is bigger than our racing actually reflects. But I'm still in contention. And conditions are perfect for a dramatic final showdown: cold, wet December morning. So we push, right to the chequered flag.
This is the 2023 Club100 Novice XP Champs - Season Finale.
Format
The Club100 Experience includes 15 minutes' practice which transitions into a 5-minute qualifying session. Qualifying determines the grid for Race 1. The fastest lap from Race 1 determines the grid for Race 2. Both races are 20 minutes long. The person with the most points across both races wins the event.
Buckmore Park circuit map.
Practice & Qualifying
I watched the Extreme 60 Challenge event that precedes the XP Champs. More so, studying the race conditions, so that come practice, I had a good idea where the optimal racing lines were across a lap.
With the exception of that spin through Symes Sweep. And that off in Hairpin 1. An additional adverse rotation, actually due to someone barging me off through lack of awareness at Paddock.
Anyway, track limits well and truly explored, I post the 3rd fastest lap time in practice. However, an average qualifying session, including the customary aborted laps through yellow flags, meant my best time would only be good enough for P6 - Race 1.
2023 XP Champs R6 Results - Practice
https://results.alphatiming.co.uk/club100/e/160771/s/363361/result
2023 XP Champs R6 Results - Qualifying
https://results.alphatiming.co.uk/club100/e/160771/s/363364/result
Race 1
I'm impressed to watch championship rival, Kart 20 - Sam White, quite literally draw an arc around pole sitter, Kart 90 - Phil Holmes, for the lead out of Hairpin 1.
Meanwhile, I'm getting harassed left, right and centre. Having dropped to P8 by Sector 1, I keep my wits about me to escape the opening lap unscathed and into P5, +1 from my grid position. I spend the next few laps hustling a way past Matthew Shorney and Jonny Fletcher, respectively dispatching both drivers on separate laps into Hairpin 1.
I'm up to P3. Now to gain on White in P2, and Holmes who has retaken the lead. I'm fastest on Lap 5, with a 1:10.032. White responds with the finest margins, a 1:10.010, only 0.022s faster, on Lap 7. This is surpassed by race leader Phil Holmes the very next lap, with finer margins still: a 1:09.930. I break into the 1'09s, too, on Lap 10 with a 1:09.955. We're trading lap times - to the tenth.
Then the race leader makes an error in one of the hairpins, handing Sam White the lead. I inherit P2. Holmes rejoins right behind me. With their pace, not ideal ... I need this guy off my derriere. Extra incentive to challenge Sam for the race lead.
We're now trading sectors. Sam's faster in Sector 1, but I'm gaining in Sector 2; a stalemate in Sector 3. As such, lap-by-lap, I'm starting to feel we're going to take our stalemate to the chequered flag. But from this whole Novice Experience, I've gained patience in intense racing conditions: at some point, we'll have traffic to negotiate.
Indeed, keeping my head in the game pays dividends. Clearing a few backmarkers starts to unsettle Sam's rhythm, my championship rival now inconsistent in Sector 2 where I've been making the most gains.
Compromising enough tenths for me to get right on his bumper into Paddock. I take the very first opportunity to get alongside into Garda. The inside line slippery, I hog the middle of the apex, refuting any advance from Sam as I regain traction off the corner. A precise block pass, for the race lead!
Now I'm ahead, it's time to command a fully wet race for the first time with Club100. That's with more traffic ahead. And Sam's right on my case, Holmes following suit.
Final lap. I clear Kart 1 - Mr Mark Hensler, a fellow Daytona Sandown Park alum, and power slide away from his efforts to unlap himself at Hairpin 2! Fortunately, Monsieur Hensler reads the situation well not to force the matter further.
A dexterous kerb hop past Kart 35 - Andy Carding into Pullman's bend completes the final clearance. A crucial move wherein which I gain two seconds' breathing space away from Sam White to the chequered flag. P1.
A RACE VICTORY ... AT BUCKMORE PARK! Yes!
2023 XP Champs R6 Results - Race 1
Race 2
Race victory. Front row start for Race 2. This is the best day I have ever had at Buckmore Park. So what in the actual royal funk did I do to spin the kart at Café Curve ... on the formation lap?
I've seen many an even experienced racer do this, thinking how? I guess this is my rite of passage.
I wait, against my patience, to rejoin safely. I hustle through the field into the Hairpin 1 / Symes Sweep cut-through. But suddenly, the pace kart seems to be setting purple sectors. Why am I having to go at race pace, in the wet, to get around karts on the formation?
I almost lose it into the Pullmans / Herbert Rise cut through trying to keep up and regain position. But there's now big gaps in the field, the formation far from single-file, disrupted further by another racer who also seems to be rejoining out of position ... as well as others caught out by the augmented pace of the formation.
Okay, so you spun. No matter. We'll go around again anyway. (They only went around 5 times in a previous race.)
Lights go green.
Everyone's reaction is delayed. Except mine. Plenty expletives coarse through my helmet. I dive-bomb into Turn 1, feeling aggrieved. I'm thinking, they don't want me to return to the front row. So empowered, I cleanly convert the move into Turn 1, then some, into four positions gained on the opening lap.
It's an assured drive through the field. Until I come across Kart 24 - Jonny Fletcher. After how many laps enduring a pace advantage I could not convert into an overtake, a last moment shimmy into Hairpin 2 completes the task. I'm ahead and back into the Top 5. But I'm now so out of sequence. I see a kart ahead as inspiration to keep pushing.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, they're a backmarker. The gap to the next rival ahead is almost 10 seconds. That's championship rival Sam, who I'd learn went for a spin himself in the latter stages of this race. So we conclude the season with quite the undesirable final race for the 2023 novice protagonists: Sam classifying P4, myself P5. The championship fight, ultimately over.
2023 Novice XP Champs R6 Results - Race 2
I came out the kart a bit frustrated about how they went about the start. The grid was far from single-file as the lights went green. I asked race control why they went green with the field so dispersed, to which I learnt the pace kart had kept cutting out throughout the day, so they wanted to proceed as quick as possible to avoid another delay. An explanation - fair, but unsatisfactory, as far as many of us were concerned.
Frustrations quashed, I finished the season finale P2 overall with a race victory, at Buckmore Park - a race circuit I have endured many a misfortune. Also, ironically, the most visited circuit in Club100. And while I was in a really good position to challenge for a clean sweep, starting Race 2 from the front row, we ultimately reverted to Buckmore custom - a comeback drive.
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| From r-l. Isaiah Egwuagu - P2. Phil Holmes - P1. Sam White - P3. 2023 Club100 Novice LW XP Champs R6 Results - Overall https://results.alphatiming.co.uk/club100/e/160771/m/2875 |
As for the championship ... can't deny, I'm a bit disappointed. I was in prime position, especially after victories at Round 2 - Lydd and Round 3 - Rye House - the only club novice to win two rounds back-to-back in 2023. However, from the halfway point, I got caught out by too many vices. But don't watch that, I'll save all my championship reflections for a corresponding article coming soon.
For now, congratulations Sam White. A fine racer whose consistent results thwarted my contentions. Indeed, come final round, I would have needed a miracle to really turn the championship around in my favour.
Yet my response is a race win, here in the season finale at Buckmore Park. What has been a bogey track for me since I joined the club. And finishing ahead of Sam in the overall result not only reduced my championship points deficit; this expresses my tenacity to perform and persevere beyond adversity.
Therefore, presenting your 2023 Club100 Novice LW Experience VICE CHAMPION ...
ISAIAH EGWUAGU!
Numerous race wins and podiums. Top 5 honours in multiple championships, including Novice Vice-Champion. And a record for my own keeping: I am the only club novice to secure back-to-back victories in 2023 ... in case I haven't already mentioned! All in my first season with Club100. I am Isaiah Egwuagu, an electric racing origin story. What a way to celebrate 10 years electrifying racetracks!