Brookes brakes down (14/07/07) - by Manix

A good friend of thrashed, Andy Brookes took part in his first pro kart championship race today at Red Lodge. With his own pro kart ready and having done a couple of tests beforehand Andy was all ready to show the competition how it's done.

Back

Practice

Turning up at the ungodly hour of 7:30 in the morning, Andy enrolled, sat in the briefing and acquired his transponder before heading out for a forty minute practice session. It was apparent from the start that this was going to be harder than first thought, a broken throttle cable halted proceedings for a while and then back on track Andy knew he wasn't getting the pull out of the corners he needed. Some adjustments to tyre pressure might help but that wasn't going to fix everything.

Qualifying

Andy was taking part in the heavyweight class along with another 6 drivers whilst the lightweights was packed with over 25 karts fighting for pole. Qualifying lasts 30 minutes and saw lots of action as racers went in and out of the pits to tweak their karts for a better time. Our man on the track was struggling to match the pace even though he wrung every last drop of speed out of the kart. With hindsight we realised that we were running the wrong sprokets on the axle and whilst the engines were running well, they're going to need proper race tuning. Even after all Andy's efforts he qualified last.

The Race

After qualifying there are 3 races and the final, the first race sees you start from your qualifying position, the second is a random grid slot and the last is a reverse grid so everyone gets a chance to race from different positions. Lights out and we're off, Andy was starting from last and could do nothing as he watched everyone pull away right from the start. The race is 20 laps and midway saw some improvement with an overtaking manoevure round the inside corner of one of the final bends. And with another retirementduring the race Andy was clawing his way up the order albeit a long wag behind the leaders. Suddenly, the guy Andy had overtaken got his racehead on and caught and passed rather too easily.

Setup Issues

Back in the pits and we're all scratching our heads for some bright idea to get more out of the kart. Without changing the axle and putting some racebred motors on the back things look pretty bleak though. Even putting the super octane fuel in wasn't getting Andy up to speed, and there were some pretty grim faces were in the paddock.

Ably assisted by his mate Ivan, Andy performed some minor fixes to repair all the things that seemed to be falling off and it was time for race 2. Andy was starting from 5th this time round and was a bit more prepared for the start, revs up and lights out, but he still got swamped. Whilst we weren't expecting to be on the podium, this was a real kick in the teeth.

Race underway and everyone streamed out to the back of the circuit out of view of spectators and coming back to the viewing area Andy was limping home and straight into the pits. Out of our sight, someone span infront and felt the full impact of Andy and kart at full throttle. This was race over for us, a flat sidepod and bent axle meant Andy couldn't continue and went home a very frustrated man.

So it's a change of sprockets and some race tuning before the next race then... keep you posted.