Round 4/5 Rowrah
Round 4/5 Rowrah was a double header with Ryan, Jon and Jordan racing, that means 3 days 3 people with practice being conducted on the Friday, round 4 Saturday and round 5 Sunday.
Practice day went smoothly with a sunny day peaking 26 degrees, a fast lap time at Rowrah is a 51.9 with a average race pace of the elite teams being around 52.5, Ryan achieved a 53.00, Jordan a 53.52 and Jon a 53.92 which is a good position given it was our first time at the circuit.
Race day 1 held similar conditions all be it a slightly colder morning with a qualifying time of 53.72 being set by Ryan placing RYSK 4th from the back on the grid which is actually our best qualifying position.
Jon started the race struggling on the open formation lap with engine start problems but quickly resolved the issue mid lap with some violent tugging on the pull start mid travel which is commendable in its own right.
Upon green light the field raced to the first corner which is a fast tight chicane taken at about 30-40mph, Jon was unfortunately closed out resulting in a significant collision that put him behind the pack significantly.
Luckily no damage was done and given this was a race of attrition Jon got his head down putting in a relatively clean stint thereafter.
Jordan followed with a consistent pace throughout putting in easy 54.2s creeping into the mid 53s on the good laps.
Given the warm conditions we were running 14psi hot which in hindsight may have been a little low for the conditions but none the less we had made our decision and would have to live with it.
As we were running with three drivers this round we had to adapt our strategy to better suit, we ended up with the following:
Qualifying
0.50 Ryan
1.15 Jon
Change (4h 45 remain) Pit 1
1.15 Jordan
Change (3h 30 remain) Pit 2
1.15 Ryan
Change (2h 15 remain) Pit 3
1.15 Jon
Change (1h 00 remain) Pit 4
1.00 Jordan
Jons second stint wasn’t without issue making it his ambition in life to turn the kart into some sort of new arial vehicle, having already helicoptered on the first corner of the first lap he must have realised it the perfect place to takeoff as if the design was similar to that of the end of an aircraft carrier, on lap 258 he accelerated over the sausage curb and shot into the air with such grace that he landed on top of another kart wacking the poor sod in the back of the head with the nose cone.
Jordans final stint was not only commendable but seriously exhilarating coming out just behind BPR kart 81 on the same lap after almost 350 laps, Jordan and BPR battled for over 30 minutes straight exchanging positions with utter ferocity, unfortunately, on this occasion BPR crossed the finish line first after 6 hours a mere 0.68 seconds before RYSK Racing.
Round 5 was a new hope and a new day, but didn’t come with a better result as some may hope for, be it the exhaustion from the round just gone or the slightly colder and wetter weather conditions.
This time round we achieved a quicker qualifying time at 53.5 but actually took a 2nd to last position on the grid due to 4 karts dropping out.
Jordan started the race having a clean start without much trouble, the latter half of his session he had a slight amount off rain but did relatively well keeping it on the track, with little more than 20 minutes left Jordan had a major rib impact which rendered him unable to continue, not without him trying to anyway and swapped out with Ryan.
Ryan…
