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After the disappointment of R1, I needed to bounce back with a solid result in R2. The championship is eight races with the best six counting towards your final standings. R1 had used up one of my spare lives. I really need to be challenging in the ‘A’ final in all my remaining races. It was another wet day, worse that R1 and a real challenge for all of the drivers, with many spins and mistakes on the wet lines as we all battled with the karts on slick tyres and a wet track. As with R1, I felt my allocated kart had a poor top speed, which was frustrating but again, you just have to go with it. I had my Go-pro on for the practice session and you can see me fighting with the kart for grip! Heat 1 - Allocated starting grid P2 of 9 and finished P5. Top line speed contributing to my loss of places. It didn’t hurt to ask the Daytona team if I could swap the kart over and despite some initial reluctance (there wasn’t anything unsafe with the kart, so they were under no obligation to change it), they relented and allocated me a different kart. Heat 2 - Allocated starting grid P8 of 9 and finished P5. The new kart felt more stable and nimble, which boosted my confidence. I recovered from a spin incident to finish P5, which I was thrilled about. ‘A’ Final - Qualified P7 of 10 and finished P6. I’d made it to A final but towards the back of the grid. It was an ‘interesting’ race to say the least, chaos unfolded with multiple crashes, causing three red flags. Fortunately, all drivers were okay. After the third red flag and little time left on the race clock, the race was abandoned for safety, with all drivers taking the positions at the time of the red flag. I managed to avoid all the crashes, finishing P6, which I’m really happy with given my lack of wet weather racing experience. On to round three in a couple of weeks. Thanks to my family, my sponsor, Camuri Ltd, and everyone who supports my racing.
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I'm delighted to share that I have my first corporate sponsor! A huge thank you to Camuri Ltd, who are supporting me for the balance of the 2024 Daytona Inkart championship and will also work with me again in 2025!
Camuri offer luxury holiday rentals in Spain (Casares and Estepona). Check out the Airbnb links below.... Casares link Estepona link Not the start to this championship that I wanted!
I'd not been feeling great in the run up to race day on Sunday but I hoped I'd be fine for the day itself. Sadly, I was still feeling out of sorts but we went along hoping for a decent outcome. It had been raining and the track was pretty damp. It was a new format to me, with alternating rounds of Grand Prix and heats and the championship had moved on to the 1200m international circuit, rather than the shorter 900m national circuit. In my practice session, my kart felt underpowered compared to others on track but that is just the luck of the draw in rental karts, so I got my head down and battled on! With a damp track and all karts running on slicks, there were plenty of spins from many drivers but I managed to keep my kart on mostly the right lines and not on the grass! I was putting in consistent times but my straight line speed was suffering. All in all, through both practice and quali, I was placing P8 out of 16, not great but not too bad considering. I was placed P2 on the grid in the B final. Unfortunately though, I didn't get to race as I started to feel really unwell and we decided it was better just to withdraw and get home to bed! I'm feeling much better now, so hopeful of a stronger performance in future rounds! |
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