Date: 21st December 2015
Track: Teamsport Southampton (Eastleigh)
My PB at this track (before this session): 23.732s
Best lap time this session: 24.189s

With a little over 24 days until the start of BRKC 2016 and a few trips to tracks further afield, I fancied a bit of fun at my home track in Eastleigh.

I was feeling quite relaxed after work, but once I had got to the track, I was raring to go. There were 6 people in my session (well in the first session anyway), of which I believe all but one of them were members.

Writing this in retrospect, there were only two parts that stood out for me; a long stoppage, which I believe was due to an injury to one of the drivers and the tremendously long battle with the young driver in front.

I truly enjoyed the battle with the young driver – It made me think about every corner and every possible move that I could make and lines I would need to take into and out of the many twists and turns.

I have to say that, although I didn’t manage to get the better than him on the track (i.e. I didn’t get the opportunity to overtake him), I did succeed in getting the fastest lap of the session and topping the leaderboard.

Due to the injury to one of the other drivers, our second session contained only four drivers. However, I was very excited and expectant of another great battle with the young driver, but I was slightly disappointed that a few silly mistakes from the younger driver allowed me to pass him easily at various points on the circuit – the cool, calm driver who had the ability to drive on the racing line at all times in the first session seemed to have been replaced by a driver who got flustered when being followed by others.

I finished top of the heap in terms of lap times in this session (with my 24.189s lap), but I did learn something about myself during this evening’s karting; I enjoy it more and feel more engaged when I am racing someone, whether that be chasing or trying to pull away from them after an overtake. This epiphany, will most likely change my tactics during the pit stop elements of the BRKC (compared with last year) and my next race; the F1 event on this very track.