EKL Round 5 Whilton Mill

After the recent Sponsorship announcement of NWC a very strong line up attended their home track Whilton mill and keen to show NWC what they can do!
The format for the day was the standard 12 heats race of champions and 2 endurance races. The heats were held on the 850 meter National circuit with the endurance races on the 1200 meter International track.
The line up was Luke Austin, Ian Williams, James Fitchew and Dan Underhill, everyone in the team had done 1000s of laps around both layouts so it we were expecting a good showing.

The Heats
Race 1 was Luke’s turn to show what the team can do. Starting 22nd it wasn’t going to be easy, but a very strong start followed by some consistent pace and overtakes saw Luke finish in 2nd place! Later in the day Luke picked up his 2nd win of the season and a 4th place, being good enough to be tied on points for the driver of the day.

James Fitchew was 2nd to take to the track starting 8th he made the most of a good start and held his own picking off a couple of positions along the way eventually finishing in 5th place a strong performance showing promise for the rest of the day. Sadly his 2nd race didn’t go quite as well getting tangled up in a 10 kart battle round pits bend and being stuck on the outside he ended up in the tyres on the exit even so he got back on the track got his head down and finished 19th In his final heat he started 22nd and slowly picked off the places 1 by 1 and ended up finishing in 13th place 9 karts in a 10 lap race is a good effort!

Ian Williams was next up and put in the best performance of his EKL career winning his 1st heat from 16th on the grid! Then to accompany that he picked up his 2nd EKL race win in race 2. Sadly heat 3 for Ian wasn’t fantastic starting at the back he got caught up in a crash at the 1st corner ending up in the tyres on the exit. However he got his head down and picked off places to eventually finish 13th.

Dan Underhill was the last of the team to take to the track in the heats sadly Dan seemed to be plagued with bad luck all day. From having a lack of power to getting tagged off the track. Despite this he managed to finish 3rd in his final heat despite getting involved in a very big crashed at inkermans.

Race of Champions
Ian Williams took to the track for the race of champions reason behind this choice was that he had been consistently fast all day and Luke ruled himself out due to a issue with his ribs, So Ian took control for the 2nd time in his EKL career in the race of champions. In qualifying he put it P10 the kart appeared to have a lack of front end grip but that’s part of the racing. Ian got his head down and made the most of the race and actually picked off a few places to eventually finish in 6th place

Endurance 1.
The line up for endurance 1 was James Fitchew and Ian Williams, James had been fast during the day so we stuck him out for qualifying and he did the team proud and put the kart P9 which was a rather strong grid spot. He then took the start of the race going from 9th to 6th at the point of his pit stop which is clearly a good showing of race pace over 1 lap pace as the people in front of him should have been faster when you look at qualifying times. Ian took over at the stop with a rapid change over Ian got back out and after all the stops was in 5th place so we gained 1 place at the stop (even with a little panic when 1 engine cut out) Ian put in a great performance and got the duo up to 3rd place! Which is the highest position the team has finished in an endurance race.

Endurance 2.
The line up for endurance 2 was Luke Austin and Dan Underhill, Once again Luke was a tad worried about the condition of his ribs so he did the qualifying session and actually put the kart P2 for the start. Maintaining 2nd and with the mentality of trying to bunch up the pack then pit Luke pitted in 2nd place after 6laps and handed over to Dan Underhill who rejoined the track in 17th place and slowly picked off places until he was in 3rd place and closing on 1st and 2nd. Until Dan’s bad luck hit again 3 laps from the end 1 engine died and dan had to limp back to the pits pick up another kart and see where he ended up. Eventually finishing 14th which was good considering we did 1 extra stop than everyone else, but sadly it caused the team to miss out on a possible overall podium and a Endurance team podium.

Summary
It was clearly disappointing for the day to have ended on such a negative note but that is racing and mechanical failures happen, despite this the team put in their strongest performance to date and everyone in the team should be proud of what they managed to do during the day. We need to say a massive thank you to our sponsor NWC (Northants waste control) on supporting us during this event and I personally think we did the guys at NWC proud.