Honda Cadet event at Rye House - 2008
7th September:
A baptism of fire for Geri. We arrived at Rye House bright and early to find that not only had Aiden from Rogue Racing beaten us, but he had reserved a space in the paddock and erected his awning (just as well as it was going to be another wet day!). While Geri went off to sign on for the day, Aiden started working on the odds and ends that still needed doing. We had weighed Geri in his kart a couple of weeks ago (91kgs), and as the minimum weight limit is 100kgs, Aiden went about adding 10kgs of ballast to the kart. We topped up with fuel, pushed the front wheels out even further, changed the sprocket for one with 75 teeth (which meant a new chain) and topped up the kart with fuel. Predictably (and thankfully) we sailed through scrutineering and soon Geri was out on track for 3 warm-up laps in the wet.
Rye House were running 7 classes of kart, the Honda Cadets with 22 entries were running as the 5th class during the day. So we had a little time to get Geri prepared for his first heat. The karts had been weighed as they came off from their practice laps, Geri came in at 105kgs so we removed 2 kgs to start with. His lap timer also needed resetting as Rye House has 3 magnetic strips per lap while Whilton Mill only has two, despite being a longer circuit. It wasn't long before we had to get Geri lined up in the pitlane - as a novice he would start from the back. In this race Geri started in the middle row of novices with two karts behind him.
Heat 1:
The first heat was a wet race on a drying track, the majority of the drivers went out on wets (we thought it prudent that Geri did too), but a handful were brave enough to try slicks - it wasn't really a "slicks" track. Geri has never done a rolling start before, and three false starts will hardly have settled his nerves. As the karts went into Stadium for the first time, Geri was a little too cautious and the two karts behind him got by, everyone else seemed to be pulling away quite quickly. But with slippery conditions and karts spinning off regularly, Geri was racing carefully and staying on the track.
The heat was for 8 laps, on lap 6 the leaders caught and passed Geri, eventually the first 8 drivers lapped Geri. Geri finished in 20th place from the 22 starters in very slippery conditions. See full lap chart.
Heat 2:
The track had dried out by the second heat. Geri was drawn to start on pole among the 5 novices in this heat but again got swamped straight from the start. The pit lane was still wet, even pushing Geri's kart into grid position saw complete understeer and got Geri's tyres wet, so no surprise really that he spun off coming out of Stadium, then again at the hairpin, and then for a third time at Pylon! By now Geri's tyres were losing their coating of water and he was able to concentrate on driving, searching for grip wherever he could find any. With a drying track the leaders came round sooner and on lap 5 they were lapping Geri, indeed every other finishing driver managed to lap Geri in this race. But in his last lap, Geri suddenly found a three second improvement in his lap time to record 47.32s. Once again there were two non-finishing karts so Geri ended in 20th from 22. See full lap chart.
Heat 3:
Changeable weather conditions saw wheels being changed and changed back. A quick shower that threatened more rain soon changed into wind and the sun even almost made an appearance. Another 2kgs of ballast was removed from the front of the kart (so should be 101kgs now), the sprocket changed to 72 teeth (and the original chain put back on). Where we would have been with Aiden's help doesn't bear thinking about!
We tried to get Geri to push harder from the start, but he was lacking in the confidence he shows when racing indoors. Geri started from second last on the grid and soon found his rightful place at the back. With a dry track, the pace was now much quicker, but so was Geri. After the first lap, all Geri's laps were faster than he had managed previously during the day, finishing with a final lap of 45.68s. And better still, because he had upped the pace, he didn't get lapped at all. See full lap chart.
Final:
All 22 drivers qualified for the final, but this would be a 15 lap race at the end of a long weekend. Conditions were now completely dry, Geri started from last place. We tried to persuade him to just drive through the kart in front (like he would indoors!) but he was still not comfortable with rolling starts. We'll have to work on that. It took Geri a while to get back into his rhythm, but by lap 6 he had beaten his previous best time today, and gone faster still on lap 7. But lap 9 saw the leaders catch Geri and he was being slowed while being lapped. Lap 10 saw his fastest lap of the day at 44.70 after which the pack caught Geri and he was not able to get a proper run again. Again two karts didn't make the finish, one of them spinning on lap 14 allowing Geri to catch up and finish 20th again from 22. Fastest lap of the day overall was 3.2 seconds faster than Geri's best, so we have a lot to learn. See full lap chart.
Geri will be back out at Rye House next month (October 5th), the week before he will make his race debut at Whilton Mill. We have three weeks to work on his confidence to see if we can get him nearer to some of the other drivers.
