Encouraging Start




While the rest of the country was dodging snow showers it remained dry and sunny at Larkhall - albeit very cold.  WSKC did a great job of protecting the track overnight and it was frost-free very quickly on Saturday.

Martyn's practice

With no budget to race Legends or any other form of Motorsport Martyn plans to race in a few kart races in 2010 to keep his hand in.  He already mechanics with Saltire Motorsport and will use their Formula Blue machinery to race in the Scottish NKRA series.  He will drive a new Gillard chassis with a Saltire Mororsport prepared motor.

This will qualify Martyn to race in the Grand final for the National Championship.

He will also race in the Formula Blue British Open Championship race - the "O" Plate which will be held at Three Sisters in Wigan - a track Martyn has had a fair bit of success at in the past, including twice Gold Cup winner, and lap record.

He won't race in any club meetings so it is liable to be maybe only 6 races or so all year.

Martyn really enjoyed his little go again in karts in December 2009 and is looking forward to havng a play again this season.

There were several comments made at Larkhall December after winning convincingly - along the lines of "...thank goodness you are not racing next year!!!"   Ooops  - sorry folks!!! 

After nearly 2 years away from karting Martyn was worried that he would not have been able to leap in again and be quick enough to do well.

In Saturday practice he was over a second slower than the quickest in the first session, then he changed tyres and was within 0.1s a lap of the fastest.  Next session, after adjusting the setup to suit he was fastest - a position he maintained for the remainder of the day.

Sunday's race meeting was 2 heats and a final - due to the shortened daylight.  Martyn was on a 3-year old Gillard chasis with a stock F Blue motor provided by Duncan White of Saltire Motorsport.  For Sunday - it remained wet enough for wets all day - although not raining.  Colin Noble - having just moved up to Rotax minimax from Formula Blue had given Martyn a used set of wets to try.  In the warm up laps they felt good - no grippier han the ones from Saturday but they seemed to warm up quicker.

Heat 1 - from grid 10 Martyn worked his way through the pack and was soon in 4th, then 3rd and then 2nd and set about catching the leader who had made a good start and opened up a large gap.  Martyn was closing all the tme but was not quite close enough to make a move on he final corner so settled for 2nd - easily the quickest though.

Heat 2 - grid 6.  Martyn made a good start 5th - then 4th in lap 1 then his engine died!!  An earth strap had broken so he was forced to retire.

In the final - because of his non-finish in the second heat - he was on grid 9.

However he made a good start and carved through the pack to take the lead within 4 or 5 laps then extended it and eased off a bit to comfortably win the race.

The timing system was not working so there are no official time which was a pity.

Martyn was delighted and really enjoyed the racing.  A big thanks to WSKC for the free entry and to Saltire Motorsport for the loan of the kart.