ECKC Rounds 1 & 2
The weekend of May 18-20 was the time for the first two rounds of ECKC, at Goodwood Kartways. On Friday practice, it was clear that Rotax Junior was a lot more competitive when compared to Mini-Max, the class I was in last year. With the track being freshly repaved, it brought some new challenges, but it had a lot more grip so it was also was quicker. I’d had the chance to race on the new layout the week before the ECKC event for a club race. Sadly, that didn’t go so well. An incident in the first corner sent me into the barriers, and out of the race. I managed to escape with minor bruising, but my kart was not as lucky. I needed a new steering wheel and seat, since I somehow snapped the steering wheel and broke the seat! ECKC came around a week later. With a flashy red Tony Kart steering wheel, I was all set to go. Qualifying for race #1 went fairly well as I qualified 12th out of 29 racers. In the pre-final I lost a position, and ended up 13th. The final went better than the pre-final, however, and according to CKN News, I managed to ‘creep’ into the top-ten, finishing 10th. Not too bad for my first competitive race in Rotax Junior, but it could’ve been better. The next day was the second round. This time, I did better in qualifying, starting 9th for the pre-final. Unfortunately, contact on lap 4 sent me back, going from 10th (which wasn’t great) down 10 positions to 20th (even worse). I got back up to 18th before the chequered, but I don’t think the results did justice for how I drove. At least there was still the final, which went a lot better. I went from 18th to 15th in the first lap, and was up to 11th by the sixth, where I remained for the rest of the race. I didn’t do quite as well as the day before, but overall not bad for my first national level weekend in Rotax Junior.