Lucas Ellingham Racing - Honda Cadet  #99

 

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2nd Meeting at Club 2000 and hoping to start making our way towards mid-field finishes but who knows how we'll do as sickness has been the order of the day.

Another early start but the weather is good today so after setting up for the day it's time to prepare the kart.

When we were setting up the kart earlier in the week we found that Lucas had bent a stub axle at the front of the kart but did not have time to get a replacement so we were trying to see how we could get the front wheel geometry near enough to keep the kart competitive. We must give a big thanks and mention to Rob Sore, father of championship leader Stephanie, for coming to our aid and lending us a straight front stub axle which got everything sorted ready for Practise. 

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Practise Session

Warm Up / Practise was the fleeting 3 laps but it was immediately obvious that the setup changes we had made to the kart had a dramatic effect and the kart & driver were looking very good. As we've mentioned before we have been struggling to find a setup that Lucas likes but from the 1st lap he looked much more settled, very similar to how he did on his old chassis. This culminated in posting the 11th fastest time out of the 18 drivers and a full 5 seconds quicker than his previous Practise Lap best!

 



Heat 1

As Novices we lined up on the grid in P16 at the back for Heat 1.

8 minutes plus 1 lap heats equated to 11 lap races with the normal rolling lap start.

Lucas got a good start running round the outside on Turn 1 and inside to T2 to pass the kart ahead and try to keep position with the faster karts ahead.

Lucas pushed on during a close race and on lap 4 managed to pass the next driver to take P12 which he maintained until he took the chequered flag. An absolutely great performance which was underlined at the Parc Ferme data check which showed his times were consistently dropping with a personal best every session.

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Heat 2

Starting from P14 we were the front runner of the Novices and from the H1 performance hoped we would do well.

​Following a team decision to change kart setup it became instantly obvious that this was not a good change and it was going to be a long hard race.

Lucas lost one position on lap 1 as he was struggling to find drive out of the corners and although making up a place on lap 2 it was only through good blocking that he managed to hold position to the end of the race.

Suffice to say the team reverted to the initial setup and looked forward to Heat 3. It was becoming noticeable that Lucas' times were starting to stabilise, become more consistent and still dropping with another personal best.









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Heat 3

We were hoping for a strong showing in Heat 3 with a replication of the Heat 1 performance as this would put Lucas a good few places up from the back for the final.

Lucas was ready for the start stone cold last on the grid and was pushing to make a few places up into Turn 1 which went to plan with Lucas overtaking the next two karts ahead.

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Lucas continued to gap the competition behind but it seemed as though he was suffering from fitness as he was obviously tiring throughout the day due to his virus from earlier in the week.

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This finish, gaining two places would put Lucas at the head of the Novice grid and with a buffer of a regular driver between him and the other novices.

Taking what seemed like a couple of minutes to get him out (although it was only maybe 30 seconds) this pretty much put him in P16 with only 1 behind him so he pushed on but we had to write this Heat of and look at it as experience. The Parc Ferme check confirmed again that every session Lucas was completing was of benefit as again he had dropped another 0.5 seconds, so on to the final.

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Final

The final approached and Lucas was adamant that he wanted the Novice trophy this meeting so we lined up in P13 with his main competition directly behind in P15.

The lights went green and the race started but somehow Lucas got out dragged down the straight and into T1 he was two places down.......into T2 he'd regained the places and also passed a mid-pack runner who had been in an incident. His nearest rival was right on his bumper all through lap 1 and was pressuring him into the infield where between T3 & T4 gave Lucas a big bump to let him know he was there. Luckily Lucas was not knocked off line and pushed on but the pressure was still immense.

The pair flew down the back straight into T6 & 7 where Lucas ran slightly wide giving the kart behind the advantage coming out of T8. Lucas pulled out of T8 and got his head down but the kart behind had the run and pulled out from the slipstream. Unfortunately for them he did not pull out early enough and clipped Lucas rear right wheel sending the passing driver skyward and flipping the kart and driver!

The race was red flagged and marshals & pushers rushed to aid the driver who was OK with only cosmetic damage to kart and equipment.

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The race was restarted with the grid being reformed from original placings. Again fatigue was rearing it's head and the lights went green and the race started but again Lucas had a poor start and got out dragged down the straight and into T1 he was one place down.......into T2 he'd regained the places and also passed a mid-pack runner who had been in an incident. The mid-pack runner managed to get past on lap 4 and Lucas tried to hold on but it could be seen that he was tiring and by Lap 9 he was being caught by the nearest novice driver. Lucas noted that he was being caught and pushed on again. The race was becoming very close and at T4 on Lap 10 the other novice took a tight line exiting the corner and got his nose ahead.

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Lucas was not having this and maintained his position line abreast into T5 which he pushed hard in not touching the brakes (to winces from his onlooking team who expected to see a spin off and clouds of dust) but to our surprise he held the move and managed to eek out a small gap to the next novice. Lucas got his head down and managed the gap for the next two laps to take the flag as the 1st placed novice, achieving his target of picking up his first Novice trophy at Club 2000.



The meeting was a real boost for the team & Lucas as for the first time with the new chassis we were starting to regain our competitive edge that we had at the close of the 2012 championship year.

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next....Tattershall KC Round 3 next weekend.

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