Boyndie is a wee kart track and they run two different configurations on the two days . . .
Nikki had been out on the Ladies evening on Tuesday in the caterham to get some seat time in the car to help her confidence . . . and what a difference it made . . . clearly more aggressive and smooth . . . and now starting to move towards a competitive time . . .
Saturday was warm and dry, the track configuration was very tight and a real pain in the ass . . . very non flowing, lots of understeer inducing corners which were difficult to set the car up for . . .
Nikki progressively took time off her times but didn't make her objective (yet) of not being last
. . . but she was getting close to that . . . more later . . .My driving was frustrating, just couldn't get the car to do what I wanted understeer or huge oversteer, ended up with some not uncompetitive times but didn't feel any satisfaction as I know I should have done better . . . such is life . . . then I thought about this . . . I kinda felt the same at Golspie, the only other place that Nikki has driven the car . . . hmmm . . . any co-incidence ? . . . tyres should be more grippy because she is up as first driver . . . I figured that perhaps this was what was screwing with my mind . . . time to do some tyre pressure checks between first and second driver runs and see what is going on . . . the ACB-10's we use are quite sensitive to pressure . . .
Saturday evening the marshals got a karting session on track FOC and a load of the drivers had a wee tussle on track in some karts, then a laid on curry, followed by some beer, wine and general merriment . . . I was knackered and hit the sack early, well I thought it was early because it was still light, turns out it wasn's so early . . . anyway, I had my big camera with me and took some karting pictures which worked out quite well . . .
Sunday spooled round faster than expected . . . give the car a quick check and reset the tyre pressures to my normal baseline . . .
Track today is much faster and more flowing, much nicer to drive . . .
Nikkis first run is brilliant, much faster than yesterday and very close already to the opposition . . .
One run has raised the tyre pressures by nearly 2psi . . . so I reset them when warm and jump in the car for my run . . .
Instantly the car work as I expect it . . . so . . . double driving the car gets more and more complicated . . . with rapid harness and tyre pressure changes needed in the Q for the track . . . stops you getting your mind in the right place . . . which is quite important when you have 60 seconds only to do what it takes . . .
By the end of the day Nikki has achieved her objective, not last . . . and is over the moon . . . huge difference in confidence over the weekend, not bad for a total beginner in any kind of quick car . . .
My driving is a little inconsistent but I pull it together for the last timed run . . . happy enough . . . nothing brilliant and I know it . . .
We truck home over Glenshee, nice big towcar engine helps . . . unfortunately that will cost 90quid in diesel . . . feck . . .
I think we'll be at Alford and then Kames sprints . . . looks like Lossie is cancelled which is a real shame . . . then some holidays and the final Doune of the year and another season comes to an end . . .
Fd
