Speed Sunday Kart Challenge (Thruxton)

Speed Sunday 17th October @ 2:15pm

Vicki Butler-Henderson and Matt Smith present the final programme of the series from Estoril in Portugal, where Formula One cars from years gone by compete in the Thoroughbred Grand Prix Series. Jason Plato is in Australia for the Bathurst 1000, the 10th round of the V8 Supercars series at Mount Panorama. Plus, action from David Brabham's 'Racing for Charity' event at Thruxton and news from the final stages of the NASCAR season.

So it's definitely going to be on this Sunday, but I've learnt that it's only going to be a four-minute feature, focussing on the Speed Sunday team's involvement. But while I fear I may not receive as much coverage as I'd hoped, you should be able to see me taking the lead at the start. Keep your eyes peeled for the blue flash!



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Assuming I'm up in time, I'll check it out

Up in time?! That's really lame!

Make sure your eyes aren't tired or you really will probably miss me! And I don't actually know why it's called "David Brabham's" event, because he failed even to turn up! As did most of the proposed celebrity drivers - Anthony Davidson was due to be there, as well as Anthony Reid (although he was probably banned for reasons of safety )



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Hey Hey! i just watched that thing on speed sunday, one of the fellas who won, Stuart Waite, well i used to race against him at castle combe in a junior championship! He won the championship and i came 5th out of 65th entrants! yay!!!

i beat him to a win once, most of the time i used to have to look at the back of his kart dissapearing into the distance! Ahh, Memories!

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Well, there was a frustrating lack of coverage of my blistering opening stint

I'm usually just outside the camera frame, especially at the start, where it follows Gareth Jones's lawn-mowing antics instead of my scintillating getaway! But I wasn't expecting too much; Speed Sunday was only interested in the celebs. I'm in a few shots, however...

On the far right, blasting past Jim Edwards Jnr.


Same action, different angle. I'm on the left, about to go out of frame :evil:


Leading the way.


The only decent (albeit brief) piece of footage of me; braking and turning into the hairpin.








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wow, you're all blurry .

Cool Alex, try to get a manager and see how things go

From what I see that's pretty fantastic mate!

Unfortunately, I couldn't see the show (out of my control), but if someone taped it, I'd greated appreciate a capture

Well done alex but how come after such a scintillating start you ended up not winning?





LS's Tip of the week
ESSENTIAL OILS aren't essential unless you're an engine, a gearbox or a twat

Cheers, guys

I do have a capture of the race, but it's 70Mb and I have no where to host it atm. Could probably send it over MSNM, Gav.

but how come after such a scintillating start you ended up not winning?

Every driver change we did was slow for some reason or another. I had a seat cushion in because the bolts in the seat were driving me mad ('scuse the pun!), and that didn't come out easily, so we were faffing around losing valuable seconds. Then one of the guys in my team tried to lever himself out of the kart using the throttle pedal, so he shot off down the pitlane hanging out of the kart (not funny at the time because we were losing those seconds again, but pretty hilarious now!).

And I'm bound to say this, but I'm sure there was something a little bit dodgy going on; being on TV, they had to have celebrities on the podium, after all. Maybe I'm totally wrong, but the reason I say this is that even the second placed team finished almost a lap ahead of us. In a 20-lap race? Come on. We were leading after five laps, so that meant they had 15 laps to pull out over 50 seconds on us (that's about how long the lap was). Seemed a bit suspicious, but nevermind; it was a charitable event in every sense of the word, and great fun too.

If there's a race next year (which I hope there will be), I'll post here again if anybody's interested in entering a team. If it's on TV again, you could use it as a major plug for grandprixgames.org, because there was advertising space all over the place.


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Yeah! great idea :D

If only I wasnt so spin happy with karts....

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She says brief things, her love’s a pony
My love’s subliminal

if only I was in England :p.
But I think it would be tough to fit me in a kart (no Josh, not as in whale-like body ), I'm just short of 6'4"... and from what I remember in Brazil, that would make me capable of driving with my knees, right?

hehe ill drive but i havnt been karting for about 2 years now...and i was really good until the track closed the junior sessions :S

i saw it, and i saw you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gui wrote:
"But I think it would be tough to fit me in a kart"

I'm 190cm tall and I can drive kart, and you are only little taller so I can't see why you couldn't drive kart.


My photo gallery: [viltzu86.deviantart.com]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/18/2004 07:47PM by villej.

I am 6"3 and i do struggle sometimes. My knees do touch the steering wheel but you have to spread eagle at bit so that you can turn.



That is me in my Rotax. It was setup so me (6"3) and my mate (5"5) could both drive it. A little uncomfortable but nothing that was gonna stop me driving it. As you can see, i am whereing knee pads, they are ideal for the loftier gent such as myself.

Iceman

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Whilton Mill! Great circuit! It's also probably just about the widest kart circuit in the world. Go anywhere after driving at Whilton and it seems like you're driving around your living room... even at Thruxton!

I had the impression you were from Finland... must be all the Kimi stuff!



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haha yeah,im from blighty! i just like kimi.

do you do any racing then alex?

Me and my mate just use my kart to blast around Whilton on test days now, we are both at uni and have neither the time or money to go racing.

PS: i have been on a wider circuit! Magny Cours karting, not sure if it still exist with the track alterations last year but that was mega. (I know what you mean about whilton, you could get at least 5-a-breast up the main straight up the hill!!! You only get the impression of speed when you have to slow the barstard down for the hairpin! some pretty hairy moments up there in my time! tee hee!)

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cool, I fit. Now I just need the two most important items!! Sponsors, and a sweet helmet

I'm in a similar situation to you, iceman: finding that taking Karting seriously is both too expensive and too time consuming. I'm not at Uni yet, but I'm going in 2005 with the intention of setting up (the Uni I'm going to doesn't currently enter one) and running an Inter-Uni kart team. That championship uses Club 100, so obviously the karts are supplied, but my goal is to persuade the Uni to fund the purchase of a 100cc so we can do what you're doing - practice days, for fun and (surprise) for practice.

I do quite a few endurance races, entering a few rounds of the Whilton endurance series (although those corporate twin-engined karts are a bit sluggish to say the least!). We were using 390cc Thunderkarts at Thruxton, which are pretty quick but way off two-stroke performance. The chassis tend to be bent from all the idiots who drive and crash them, which is the obvious disadvantage over owning and maintaining your own. It's all good fun, though!



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how wide is whilton compared to somewhere like PF International (because thats the widest circuit i know lol, probably 3-4 karts wide down the main straight)