Coming off the back of a great comeback drive at Fulbeck we were eager to have a solid showing. Strong performances in testing left us feeling upbeat about the meeting close to the Arctic circle.... or so it seemed trying to get there through the traffic and Scottish summer squalls...
Friday
Testing went well, looking good with lap times buzzing in the front few but the weather was all over the place so couldn't be sure where everyone would pan out if it went dry or full wet..... so onto Saturday....
Practice....looking strong and definately in the mix so...
TQ Didn't go 100% to plan....well, TBH didn't go 50% to plan and TQ'D 7th in group.....after an inspiration talk from Mike Spencer and a motivational demonstration from me, Dude (as we would find out) decided to get his head into gear and his finger out...
Heat 1 (group A vs B) Starting from P5 was not what we wanted but it's what we got and better than P7. Lucas has shown he can do the job so confident that unless we got fired again things should hopefully go OK. Off and maintained position in the train but full course yellow bunched the grid up...lap 2 and green....P2 runner dropped to P5 on lap 3 and on lap 6 it was time to go moving from P4 to P2.
The front group were all still very close with 1 second covering top 5...lap 8 dropped to P4 and needed to start moving up as time was running out. ..lap 9 into 3rd and set about closing down the front pair who had a 0.6 lead but were working together...Head down and push lap 10 closed by 0.2 to 0.4 behind and on last lap P2 driver went into bottom hairpin and left the door wide open so Lucas went straight in to grab P2....Happy with that and also grabbed fastest lap, well done Dude!!
Heat 2 (group A vs C) P5 again but this would be a much harder heat as the B vs C heat looked to be a load-fest with up to 8 karts all loading into the hairpins..... Good start again making it to P3 on lap 1 but big names in the group and on lap 6 was demoted to 4th so Lucas worked with the O plate winner Bearman to try and push up to the front pair who had a 1 second gap. . Lucas and Bearman closed the gap to 0.6 then 0.3 over 2 laps showing great pace. Lap 9 Lucas went from P4 to lead the race! Bit short lived as the front 4 were all racing for the win and got shuffled to 3rd on next lap. Last lap and P2 went for the lead which also enabled Lucas to come over the line in P2......
Two heats, two P2 finishes, fastest lap, great points and a P2 start for final 1 on Sunday....should hopefully make it easier than having to come from P26 to P4 like at Fulbeck....
Sunday & the Finals
Final 1 (pre-final) Front row start but on the outside which is not ideal at this track as from the start it goes straight into a double left which can lead to the outside row being pushed wide...
Lights go and Lucas' starting technique is coming up trumps again as he comes into my view about 4 lengths in front of the chasing drivers...relief to get through the bottom hairpin unscathed.. now to get to work..nope...full course yellow backs up all the drivers whilst an incident is dealt with. Lucas leads the train round and prepares to take the green flag add catches the pack sleeping, coming into view even further ahead this time. It was no doubt he'd get caught but how quickly....it turned out it was lap 4 where he was relegated to P3. The following pack were closing in due to infighting at the front and by lap 6 it was a 6 kart train, lap 7 lucas took advantage of the p1 and p2 drivers clipping each other and again took the lead but lap 8 back to 4th. More jostling until lap 11 where lucas got to 2nd but more fighting allowed the leader to get away.. Lucas stayed 2nd until the last lap where he let Thompson past to get an inside P3 start for final 2....clever boy and great performance again.
Final Lights out and pleased and surprised to see Dude come round the corner in the lead AGAIN...from p3 on the grid... he's got the starts bang on!
Lap 2 and Bearman goes for the lead...no fighting, let's try to get away.. .it starts to work with Lucas pushing Oliver away over the following laps to build a 6.6 second lead over the 3rd place driver.....but even though it had seemed that the plan was to take the points and the podium we could see Dude was chomping at the bit to go in, so some calming looks to try
to keep him on station seemed to work....until all out of the blue Bearman went defensive on the last corner of the last lap and Lucas took this as a green light to have a go and swung wide at the last minute to try the undercut. .......so bloody nearly...3/100ths of a second separated Oliver who took the top step and Lucas who got his 1st proper Super 1 podium...and hopefully showed some of the critics and gained just a little respect....hopefully.