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Location	Rye House Circuit, Hoddesdon
Date	29/03/2010
Cost	£95
Spaces	36
Deadline	19/03/2010
Event Information	This event has now taken place.

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Event Report

Karting Report - 29th March 10
A fantastic turn out to the North London Centre's first karting event of the year and also the first round of the 2010 Karting Championship. 37 drivers all revved up and ready to go. Even the atrocious weather and diabolical M25 traffic couldn't dampen the spirits.



Not only were there lots of new faces alongside the regulars, which is always nice to see, there was also the excitement of a new briefing video at Rye House! Sadly, tempered by the fact it was still Charlie Butler-Henderson droning on about his "time in the prestigious BTCC" - Wikipedia tells me that for all the impact he had on the half season he did in 2004, he might as well have not bothered!

Action started with the two practice/quali sessions. Although not raining, the track was extremely wet for the first session with marginally fewer puddles for the second. Still, everyone got stuck in - with the usual mix of enthusiasm for the wet conditions. Relatively big heavy karts, on slick tyres in soaked conditions is always exciting and for those that have circulated many laps of Rye House in the past, offers a nice change and challenge.

Everyone coped well with the conditions, searching out the best lines and often finding even the best grip was minimal - but in the most part, staying on the track, if not always facing the right way.



The mornings qualification races were being staged on a drying track. With the times of drivers split a fair amount in the morning, Allan staggered the grid for the race - with the fastest from quali starting nearly 1 lap behind the slower end of the field. However, with the track drying out the "wet" advantage quickly changed and it was hard for drivers to make their way up the field. Still, in the most part, most got far enough up the field to make the all important A final.

The B Final saw some good gains and significant loses! With the slightly mixed up grid from the earlier staggered start, there was some shuffling due and with the conditions now only damp, a lot of this happened fairly early doors. The biggest gain of all from the eventual winner, Craig M who moved from 10th on the starting grid. Well done to Craig, but also to Tony A, who also made up 9 spots from 16th to 7th. He was unlucky not to make one more, ending up just 0.68 behind 6th place at the flag. Simon I just held off Glen at the line for their battle for 4th and 5th and a little further back in the field Mike P, moving up from 18th on the grid, nearly made it past Mike J, who held onto 10th on his way down from 4th on the grid. The podium was Craig M in 1st, 9 seconds ahead of Peter S in 2nd and Martin N a further 6 seconds back in 3rd.



Onto the A final and on a track that had a dry line everywhere - but still had puddles off line. Puddles that would certainly come into play during the fast and frantic action. Being part of the action (and not at the sharp end) it's sometimes hard to work out exactly what's happened at the front of the grid, but from the sounds of the banter at the end of the race, it was certainly fast and fun at the head of the field. I can report that the mid field action was equally exciting and certainly ended up closer at the flag. I think the race can be split into two parts - the part before the front lot decided to spread a whole puddle of water over the racing line and then the part after the event. From what I can gather, it all started with a side-by-side move going into Pylon and ended with Drew fully sideways through the large puddle, with the wake caused spreading a lake of water all over the racing line.

Those following behind had a short sharp reminder just how slippy a wet track is, and there were several karts spotted facing the wrong way and the yellow flag remained in hand for several laps to follow as well.

However, this did bunch up the mid field a lot and a train started to form behind Russ' slow kart. He did well to hold off as many people as he did ending up in 8th place. However, 8th to 12th place were covered by 0.9 seconds at the flag, just proving that it's not ALL about finishing at the head of the field!

Alan W made a fantastic start to his season, finishing off in first place. Tony H, coming out of CSMA Karting Retirement, showed he'd not lost any of his pace with 2nd place and Oli made a good start to his campaign, coming home in 3rd. Drew "Puddle Man" Goodspeed sloshed his way to 4th place, just behind Oli.

Well done to all. Full results are available and the championship page has been updated with the latest standings.

Lunchtime left everyone just enough time to strip off their wet overalls and team up for the afternoon endurance. Then, there was just enough time to put back on the wet weather gear as the rain started to fall once more.



We were all given a lesson in wet weather driving by Kart 4 of Andy and Rob R. Nobody got close and the ended up a lap ahead of everyone else. It was hard to keep track of the race, with strong drivers paired with less experienced drivers and the natural ebb and flow caused by the weather - people having spins and changing karts etc.

Kevin W did manage to have a huge off - down the straight. This spread mud everywhere, and made conditions even trickier for a number of laps.

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