Round two Rye House: Thats better!
Wednesday 3 March saw all the teams travel down to Rye House in Hoddesdon Hertfordshire for round two of the Bukc championship. Again luckily the weather was nice to us which is good becuase Rye House is horrible in the wet as its partial to a spot of flooding as we saw on the test day!
We ran a slightly different line up this time swapping Ian and Craig from the B team with Jesse and Mark from the A team. We also ran a C team as a chance for some drivers to have a race and also as a test to see how they would go as potential drivers for the A or B team if current drivers fail to perform! ;)
This time we had a tough old time with some rough racing from the other teams. Some noticable performances came from James this time and also from Jesse and Oli. All said, we came in 5th and 6th overall respectively. This was much better than round one albeit 4 places too low! But we are all pushing in the right direction and and all have the pace to win. Plus we still have over half the championship remaining so hopefully all going to plan we will use round one as our dropped score and round two as our lowest (well thats the plan on paper!).
Bring on Warden Law now on 26 March!
For full race and championship round results click Here!
Round one Bayford Meadows: Quick but not quite there!
The Bukc season kicked off at Bayford meadows in Sittingbourne Kent on 18 February. The day was a little cloudy but luckily it remained dry for us. We had a mixed bag of results but ultimately didnt get the result we were capable of due to several drivers making stupid mistakes and a little bit of bad luck with traffic and pit stops.
However we did come away from the day having set 3 fastest laps out of 5 races which is pretty impressive, and a clear cut indication that we are a force to be rekoned with. The laps were set by Simon, Ian and Sam. At the end of the day we came home in 7th and 11th overall. Must try harder....
Team Secures Nightclub Sponsor!
Local night club/Bar 'Barons & Bar 5' have agreed to sponsor the Swansea Institute Kart team. Last night (Monday) Simon and James from the team were in the club promoting the team on the busiest student night of the week. The support from Barons & Bar 5 along with the support from SUSI (Students Union Swansea Institute) is a brilliant development for the team as a whole and allows us to fund the team and the teams most suitable drivers more effectively, giving us the best chance of success for this year championship campaign.
Team Prepare for Round 1
The Swansea team are delighted to have found sponsorship for both karts in their 2004 Bukc campaign. The Students Union have agreed to fund 50% of our entry fees, making meeting the costs a great deal easier for all 8 drivers. We have several other potential local sponsors in the pipeline and hope to finalise these in the coming weeks to attempt to meet the other remianing costs of entry and accomodation throughout the championship. Watch this space.
The first round of the championship is just TWO days away now and the team are raring to go. We have just received our new Swansea visor stickers from the printers and are all kitted up to go racing in 2004. With a bit of luck the weather will be nice and sunny for us all in Kent, but due to the whole teams experience we are prepared for any conditions, as we demonstrated at the previous two test days in November 2003 by being well on the pace. We are running two teams in the championship this year but as we have a number of reserve drivers available we may indeed run a 3rd team in some of the rounds from time to time.
A report and results from round 1 will follow shortly, as will photographs. We are all determined to bring the title to Swansea this year and hope to kick off the championship in fine style!
BUKC Test at Rye House
The second and final official test of the �2004 BUKC� took place at Rye House in Hoddesdon on Wednesday 26 November. Once again we had a nice early start leaving at 4am in the cold rain from Swansea, but we all love it (I think)!
Unlike the beautiful skies of Bayford Meadows 3 weeks before we were greeted with monsoon conditions and a totally flooded track! The initial reaction while all looking out of the windows of the clubhouse was a bit of nervous laughter, but after an hour or so we were all kitted up and in the pits ready to have some fun splashing around!
In honesty for the first half hour of the four hour session it was too wet and well, a little ridiculous to be running at all in those conditions, but soon enough a �wet� dry line started to appear allowing the karts a small amount of grip as opposed to aquaplaning even down the straights.
As for the Swansea team all of us coped well with the changeable testing conditions and once again didn�t disappoint. The highlight of the session for me was of Oli Warman and Jesse Mason in the first run at the circuits wettest. These two absolutely ripped up the circuit lapping easily faster than any other team, particularly Oli getting down to a 1:02.61 long before anyone else got into the 1:02�s which was delightful to witness!
Everybody else coped well and put in some superb performances, Including Mark Johnston�s 4th quickest time for us, and Sam Tomlinson�s smooth and consistent run. It was safe to say that by the second run on the ever-drying track we were all getting quicker and quicker (from a 103.58 to a 53.70 in kart 13) while giving the other teams a run for their money. At the end of the four-hour session Swansea came in 1st and 4th on the time sheets, albeit with the number 14 kart using a cut through (I see your plan Richard)! But even so we proved we were on the pace in the dry conditions of Bayford Meadows and the Changeable conditions of Rye House.
From the performances of the guys at both tests I am pretty sure who will be most suitable for the race team in February. It is just going to be a difficult decision now as there are too many! Next years championship campaign should be a bigger and stronger one than this year and we are all looking forward to the first round now. I will decide and announce the line up as soon as possible, watch this space!
BUKC Test 1, Bayford Meadows
The first official test of the �2004 BUKC� season took place at Bayford Meadows in Kent on the Wednesday 5 November. With an anti-student start time of 08.30 we had to be on the road for a shocking 04.00!
Anyhow, the 12 of us got there on time and enjoyed a beautiful dry sunny day with 4 hours track time for each kart. Giving each driver a good 40 minutes each, which we split into two 20min sessions each.
30 teams from Brighton all the way up to Leeds took place in the test and at the end of the day amazingly the top 22 teams were all within 1.00 second of each other! It really is going to be an ultra competitive year in 2004, but the Swansea Institute Kart team didn�t disappoint and were on the pace coming home in 8th and 11th overall (only 0.43 off P1).
Everyone drove very well and apart from the odd black flag (naughty!) and a loose axle on one of our karts, we had a very successful day. Some noticeable performances from Jesse Mason, James Green and Ian Smith setting our fastest laps. An impressive performance also came from Craig Foreman on his first run in a Club 100 machine.
We are now busily preparing for the 2nd and final official test day at Rye House on 26 November. After that we will have until February 2004 before round one of the championship and over the Christmas period hope to find some backing and sponsorship to fund the team, and to confirm the line up of the 8 race drivers for each kart.
Watch this space!
BUKC Test at Bayford Meadows
Tomorow will see 12 students make the journey to Bayford Meadows in kent to participate in an organised test using the Club100 karts.
It is planned for Simon Joannou, James Green, Richard Francis, Oli Warman, Oli Robinson,
Craig Foreman, Laurance Curren, Anthony Mitro, Chris Bradshaw, Colin Mason, Jesse Mason and Ian Smith
to have the use of 2 karts and have 40min of track time each.
With the test starting at 9.00am an early start of 4.00am is required from Swansea to beat the dreaded
M25 traffic.
Llandow Kart Grand Prix
41 Students from Swansea Institute travelled to a very wet and cold Llandow Kart Circuit yesterday.
Each student took part in 4 heats and a Semi Final, in wet conditions and on slick tyres it was an entertaining site with numerous spins, shunts and barrier breaking crashes!!
Results of the Races will be posted shortly, whilst photos from yesterdays events are online HERE.
It was interesting to see a variety of abilities try to cope with the slippery conditions;
abilities ranging from being a complete novice to outdoor karting to regular competition karters
including Club100, Rotax Max, TKM and Gearbox karts.
Im fairly sure that the majority enjoyed the event, although being wet, cold and hungry is not everyones cup of tea. There are plans to run further Grand Prix events later in the year.
Details of which will be posted on the notice boards.