Pentewan Sands Sailing Club Fun Events : Summer Series
Wednesday 28th - Friday 30th August 2013

We held our (almost) annual go-kart Grand Prix on Wednesday 28 August at the Liskeard Kart World straight after the sailing championships. We got excellent conditions and a new record attendance of 24 keen karters took part. Both clubs and families were well represented. Leading families included the Berisfords (4), the Bunyans (3) the Whaleys (3) The Galls (2 + Tom’s girlfriend), the Aldridges (2) and the Smiths (2). Club representation was as follows Carsington 4, Brightlingsea 4 (all Berisfords), Grafham 3, Swanage 3 (all Whaleys) Stewartby 3 (all Bunyans), Beaver 2, Draycote 2, Shanklin 2 and Worthing 1. As usual the competition was hot and as fiercely contested as the sailing.

All contestants got a 5 lap warm-up session and the grid positions for the first heat was decided by fastest laps from the warm up period. There then followed three 10 lap heats and the finishing positions from each heat determined the grid positions for the next heat. Thus it was track position which mattered (not fastest laps like last time). This made it much easier for the spectators to follow but mistakes were punished more heavily as recovery from a spin or a crash was difficult.

The grid for heat 1 was: pole Matt Smith, 2^nd Mark Aldridge, 3^rd Paul Craft 4^th Ray Gall 5^th George Love – so no big surprises so far. After the 10 laps in heat 1 the results were as follows: 1^st Mark Bunyan, 2^nd Matt Smith 3^rd George Love,  4^th Ray Gall and 5^th Paul Craft and so far so good.  After a short break heat 2 took place. After a further 10 laps the finishing places were 1^st Matt Smith, 2^nd Mark Bunyan, 3^rd Tom Gall 4^th Adrian Whaley and 5^th George Love. The drivers were debriefed after a bruising heat and a couple of drivers were handed out penalty points for dirty and over aggressive driving. Annabell (Tom’s girlfriend) was given a massive 8 penalty points and Ben Whaley was also giver a few. In between heats the talk was of what might have been if Annabell had not ‘T’ boned driver A or if she had not spun off driver J, etc. - what has Tom done to make her so mean? The final heat was run a short time later and the results had a similar look with the places going to 1^st Matt Smith, 2^nd Mark Bunyan, 3^rd George Love, 4^th Ray Gall and 5^th Tom Gall. There followed a long delay while (a) the operatives worked out who should take part in the final (b) they cleared an errant dog off the track and (c) they cleared the backlog of other punters from the queue that had developed.

The final eventually took place with 8 drivers and it was Matt Smith who took the crown from Mark Bunyan, Adrian Whaley, Tom Gall and George Love. No one could deny that Matt and Mark were the outstanding drivers from the proceedings. There followed a second final for 9^th to 16^th places. This was done as we had pointed out that our big group deserved more races and prizes and it was the easiest thing the track could do. So a mid-place final too place and Ben Whaley won 9^th place from Liam Thom and Andy Burnham.

Anyway a good time was had by all and the trophy was presented to Matt Smith and wine prizes to the others who were in the top 3. Amusingly Ben Whaley also got a bottle of bubbly for being 9^th but he pointed out that he REALLY deserved it as he clocked up the fastest lap on the day.

Final places: 1^st Matt Smith, 2^nd Mark Bunyan, 3^rd Adrian Whaley, 4^th Tom Gall, 5^th George Love, 6^th Mark Aldridge, 7^th Ray Gall, 8^th Steve Petts, 9^th Ben Whaley, 10^th Liam Thom, 11^th Andy Bunyan, 12^th Jack Berisford, 13^th Sam Whaley, 14^th Paul Craft, 15^th Annabell, 16^th Phil Warner, 17^th Jacob Aldridge, 18^th (Joint) Andrew Berisford & Joe Farmer, 20^th John Shenton, 21^st Ellie Berisford, 22^nd Catherine Berisford, 23^rd (joint) Matt White & David Bunyan.

Bob Carter, 2 Sept 2013