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Bristol Pegasus Ice Karting, 09 December 2004

Members of Bristol Pegasus Motor Club and Marlin Racing Club joined together at Bristol Ice Rink to compete in their karts on the ring of ice. I arrived at 18:30 in plenty of time to grab a drink and scout out the circuit. The marshalls rolled the karts out and proceeded to warm up the engines. It was a good opportunity to note how much grip and power was available. The answers were not a lot, and enough to come out of a corner backwards! It also gave an opportunity to view the tight oval circuit they had laid out. People arrived quickly, and we were able to start the marathon event at 19:30. Before this, however, the four teams were announced, and safety instruction given. Four karts lined up at the start line.

Being prepared, my team-mates handed me the short straw of starting as I was the only one with my gloves and a bib on. I had been watching the marshalls warming up the karts on the ice whilst everyone was gathering, so I was pretty sure of what to expect. How wrong I was! I had been drawn on the outside of the grid, and was expecting to come out last. At the start, we all managed to slide into the first corner without tangling. I naturally took the outside line. After a lap, I had made it to third place. I was chuffed. On the next lap, I remembered I was a rear wheel drive virgin, and found myself exiting the first corner in reverse. Whoops!

That was not my last mistake either, as my first experience of a power slide resulted in a rather hefty bash with the wall. My turn was soon over, and I handed the kart over to the next driver in last place, and almost a lap down. Sorry lads. We were being brought in by the marshalls for driver changes every 10 or so laps. This kept the sessions short and sweet, and allowed discussion of performance between sessions. We soon realised that driver performance seemed to make very little difference to lap times. This meant that the fastest kart was the one that could spend the most time moving forwards. This meant that keeping it pointed in the right direction, and changing drivers quickly was extremely important.

The other kart stopping times were in the "Sin Bin". This is where you were sent for seemingly arbitrary reasons that the marshalls liked to term bad behaviour. Often, the innocent driver in collisions was sent to the sin bin whilst the driver in error continued onwards, and many a driver exited the kart to immediately ask why he was sent to the sin bin. Still, it didn't detract from the event, and gave us something to protest about trackside, which we enjoyed! We managed to keep clear of the sin bin for most of the first 90 minute race, whilst the other teams were spending quite some time there.

Despite the fun being had, time didn't fly, and we felt like we had a really good session by the end of the first race. At this point, we gathered in the bar for some motorsport chat, and refreshments. This led to a discussion of whether the extra weight of food will be help or hinderance. We couldn't decide. Whilst we were eating, the results of round one were read out. We were surprised, and quite jubilant to find we were on the top step of the half-time podium. There wasn't much in it though, with just 17 laps covering all the teams. This may sound a lot, but when you consider that a pitstop loses you 3 laps, and we completed 300 laps in 90 minutes, you realise it's very little.

When we returned to the track, we discovered the earlier tight track had been replaced with an oval taking up much of the rink. This made a huge difference to how the karts were driven. In the first race, people took a whole host of different racing lines. Some kept to the inside, braking into the corner, and accelerating out, whilst some preferred the traditional out-in-out line to conserve momentum. I tried both, and settled on the inside line towards the end. In the second race, it was possible to keep your foot on the throttle all the way round and drift almost in a circle. We were confident after the first race that all we had to do was keep it neat and tidy to take the win. As the overall title was an aggregate, we had 7 laps over second place, and 17 over fouth. Lots to play with!

The racing started well, and we seemed to be on a similar pace to the others on track. However, soon into the race, our kart broke down. We were given another kart, but we lost about 4-5 laps. Fortunately, the new kart handled much better, and seemed to be faster. This gave us renewed confidence, despite our loss of laps. With less than minutes of the race left, a "racing incident" left our kart without drive as the chain came off. Much jeering from the other teams ensued as the race ground to a halt to get our kart fixed and off the racing line. The kart was fixed, but needless to say, we were sent straight to the sin bin. Five minutes later, and it was all over.

We retired to the cafe for chatter and the results. We were confident, but our performance had clearly dropped off, as we were a whopping 47 laps down on the eventual winners. We took a graceful third place. In the end, it really didn't matter. Time to organise another perhaps? Talking of organising, a BIG thanks to the organisers, who made a great evening of racing possible.

Quality venue. This piece of chewing gum deposited by a previous client was painted over during a redecoration!	The winning team. You'd never guess!