April 23rd was the third round of the 2023 Hooton Clubman IKR Championship.
Prior to the event, we had sent the kart to Kartal Motorsport to be jigged and straightened as round 2 saw me being hit from behind and bending the back arm. Dad had not completed the rebuild in time for the practice on the Saturday so we just entered the race on the Sunday.
Results can be found here: Alpha - Hooton Junior Rotax Results
This session was by far the best session so far, but more on that later.
Weather report
We had been watching the weather all week and it was very close to being a wet one, on the morning the weather reported it raining at 17:00 and true to tits word it managed to stay dry all day with a little threat at the final.
Sunday
Practice Session
As it was a cool day, pressures were set too 12 PSI on a dry set up with a 76 tooth sprocket. I was on 1 race old Komet tires.
The acceleration hit me once again and wow - I love this sport. I tried to get the tires up to temperature and noticed that the kart was responding amazing after being straightened. It was going where I wanted it too, turned when I wanted it too. It was a different Kart altogether.
Amazingly in practice I managed P3 - yes you read that right P3..the best position in my karting career.
Results here: Hooton IKR Round 3 - Practice.
Qualifying
Position Achevied: P8
This is the best qualifying I have had so far. Dad said most of the session I was at P3 but as everyone's tires were getting warm I ended up getting stuck in traffic and couldn't utilize the extra grip to keep me there and on the last lap, I dropped to 8th.
Not disappointed though, I am still in the best position so far.
Heat 1
What an amazing race. It started bad by being push on to the grass on the first corner on lap 2 causing me to spin and ended up dead last. 
However, I wasnt going to let this beat me and I worked hard through the race passing kart after kart.
by Lap 12 I had put myself back in to a respectable P11 for the next heat. Very dramatic race which had Dad and Grandad on the seat of their pants.
Just a note, though, no changes were made to the kart as it was performing amazingly well.
Heat 2
Another great heat and excellent race, I lost one position on the first corner, this is something I need to work on as its quite daunting with 20+ karts thundering in to the first corner fighting for position. I regained my position by the next lap though which was good then, bad luck for George Bell in 5th who crashed out put me up in to 9th on the 8 the lap. A good battle up until Lap 11 when Jayden Robinson out braked me and beat me out of the corner on the last lap securing me a P10 over the finish line.
Final
When it comes to finals, this one was the best I have had since karting. A great start I managed to climb two places in the first lap, mainly due to an incident in the first corner as per usual. i the drove my heat out chasing down Lewis Sumner to end up passing him for P5 on lap 6. Unfortunately due to the amount of time it took to pass him as his defense was brilliant, the gap to 4th was about 14 seconds all I had to do now was to hold on to my position and push hard.
Today was a great result, bare in mind we only turned up for the race on Sunday with no practice and was running used tires and old fuel (still full from the last session) we could have asked for more.
Keep posted for the next event.
Karting costs
Consumables:
No consumables bought for this session.
Kart Spares on/day or before session:
Kart straightening by Kartal: £80
Bumper screws from Modus: £7.02
Other Costs:
Lunch Sat: £11
Lunch Sun: £18
Drinks and snacks: £10
Membership £65
RaceDay£65
Total: £256.02
Thanks
This weekend wouldn't have been successful without the help and support of quite a few people so I just want to thank:
Mum - for Absolutely everything, from lunches to support!
Dad - for making it all happen.
Grandad - for the financial and emotional support.
Wightman Stewart for the sponsorship.
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