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5th round PCI-Karting Championship 2011, Watergrass Hill Co. Cork Report

Hi all,

Watergrass Hill was the location of the 5th round for the PCI-Karting Championship, a venue tried and tested and one of the best Karting venues in the Country. To no surprise it brings out the best of local support from PCI-Members who understandably would like to show us how to have the best of craic on their home track with seasoned and esteemed competitors such as Dave Whelan and Denis Collins. Andy and I had a breakfast stop in Fermoy on our way to Kartworld as Andy could not do without it and in fairness once mentioned by Andy to stop for a fry I had the smell of it in my nose and subsequently my stomach stirred with hunger and I couldn’t wait to get there.

It was only a stone throw from Fermoy to hit Watergrass Hill and on our arrival Joe and Stephan as well as newcomer Jakub and his friend Lokash as well as our President Dave Whelan including Garrett D. from Cork had parked up their cars awaiting proceedings. Little time after we noticed a Biker heading towards us and wondered who this Hells Angel was only to discover Denis arriving in style with his beautiful bike as he also had Mel and his son Roy in tow arriving with a bang in a big Truck, the make which escapes me but nonetheless the size of it. There was plenty of banter as you can well imagine and plenty of ideas / views when talking about our cars were exchanged, with Connie making his entrance with his now battle-scarred viper green toy of late.

It was only a new track for Garreth C., Eamon, Susan and Jacub as the rest of us had been here before over the last two season as we tested ourselves with our Friends. Care was taken as we looked after Eamon and his Wife Susan and welcomed both of them into the PCI-Karting fraternity as well as Jacub, who travelled from Galway and was well up for it.

The qualifying session went ahead without any major race incident as we all got familiar with our Karts the track and renewing ourselves with the best race-lines and speeds through particular sections of the track. At full throttle right from the start line you bear down into a long right hand turn sweeping down the hill without letting off and taking full g-force heading down hill to a right hand turn 2, hard on the brakes before hitting the throttle to the metal coming through and aim for left turn 3, a little off it and strait through repositioning yourself to take a chicane left turn 4, then hit the brakes quickly hard and most of the time I was sliding through right turn 5 heading up to take a tight right turn 6 leading to the finish and start line as we started another lap.

All of us lined up for a rolling start in the Grand Prix Final, with each of us immediately battling for position sweeping down to turn 1 at full speed and as far as I could see no incidents to be seen for the first two laps. Joe, Patrick and Jakub, Dave and Denis were spearheading the adventure as I had to fight with turn 2 and at that point being rear-ended, while having some great battles with Jon, Andy and several others of our Friends. I wasn’t making that much hay and at some point I thought maybe I shouldn’t have had the Breakfast as I just couldn’t make up much track, however hard I tried. The best action was on turn 5 as we all had some incident one way or another while negotiating and from what I could see, Susan was having the greatest of time skidding sideways through turn 5 each time with a laugh on her face and clearly enjoying herself. Garrett D. from what I could see was thoroughly enjoying himself as Eamon was held back to make significant progress with his wet-suit supplied by the venue organisers, Roy just home for a holiday from Nasa flying past me in pro style just like his father Mel most likely would have. Andy was way ahead of me and I think he was the only one benefitting from the Breakfast we had on the way down. Garreth C., who for the second time this season enjoyed himself, with Denis our esteemed racer from Cork gave them all a run for their money tightly packed in his leathers. El Presidente Dave had an action packed session as I was trying to hold off Garreth, who pipped me to the line as he unlapped himself at the end of the race.

What a great finish.

The classification of the race was as follows:

Winner Joe with fastest Lap and playing his joker, 2nd Patrick from Cork, 3rd Jakub from Galway, 4th Connie, 5th Stephan, 6th Denis, 7th Andy, 8th Roy, 9th Dave W., 10th George, 11th Garreth C., 12th Jon aka Du. from Cork, 14th Eamon and sty, 13th Garrett D Susan finishing a brave 15th.

This will change the Leader board once again:

 

Joe 75 points

Ben 54 points

Connie 34 points

Brian 33 points

Andy 27 points

Rob C. 26 points

David D. 17 points ….. George 17 points

Bob 15 points

Anthony 13 points ….. Stephen W. 13 points

Patrick C. 12 points

Jakub 10 points

Michael D. 9 points

Chris P. 6 points

Denis C. 5 points …. Mick B. 5 points

John E. 4 points

Dave W. 3 points

Alan 2 points …. Garreth C. 2 points

Ciaran 1 point

Once again Joe has retaken the leader board of the PCI-Karting Championship with a spectacular drive, having great battles with Patrick and Jakub both stars on the Karting horizon. Unfortunately the now second placed Ben wasn’t able to get to this session to try maintain his lead, however as it turned out Joe played his Joker and retook the leader ship in style with a good few points to spare. All the more to fight for in the last two sessions of the season it will be interesting to see if anyone can challenge Joe for the title. One more point I would like to make, we nearly have a Lady’s team together if you take Emer, Susan and Elainne you may watch out for any of them as all of them in due time will be as good as any of us, just as competitive and great racers with no fear up for the craic.

To think of it only two more races to go this season and it’s all over for this year’s Championship, can’t believe myself where the time went this year. However second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth places are still undecided and all to play for as some of our Competitors haven’t played their Joker. Anyone who hasn’tplayed their Joker will have to play them in the next or in the last race of this year’s season, so who knows a lot could still change as we roll on to the next Karting-event on the 18th of September with details to be announced.

I would like to thank everyone who made some outstanding efforts to come to this session as at some point we didn’t have sufficient numbers ( this venue required 14 drivers ) to run a Grand Prix session and were in danger to cancel the event. All the more and with gratitude I am happy to say that our Members have heard my call and supported the event in sufficient numbers and made this a fantastic day out once more.

A special thanks to Lokash, Jakubs friend who took some fantastic action pictures from the race and I will furnish them to the PCI-website, but because of nearly 500 MB’s its difficult to send the pictures as I am working on it in my sparetime.

Hope to see you on the 18th of September, until then

Many thanks George


14/08/2011