VIDEO from Final and photos to follow

Video from Heats - double-click to open full screen on YouTube

After missing Friday practice because of work Martyn had only 3 sessions on Saturday morning to set the kart up before the heats.

Any worries were soon dispelled though as first time out on the track he set a blistering pace in the 44 second bracket - with only Craig Copeland a couple of 10ths quicker.  Martyn fine-tuned the settings on his Saltire prepared Gillard and was ready to race.

Duncan White of Saltire Racing had rebuilt an engine for Martyn and it was faultless and spot-on the pace.  The combination of Martyn and the Saltire kit would prove to be a formidible combination......

Heat 1...

Martyn has decided to have a run in the Grand Finals at Llandow in South Wales after all.  He has had good results there in the past (check the videos) but he will have to miss out on most of the practice sessions and will arrive in time for Saturday morning.  We think that will allow for a few runs before the races start.

Updates

We have been having some computer problems for the past few months - ending up with a broken laptop which put us completely out of action.  We just got a new one and as a bonus Joe Haggerty repaired the broken laptop (which we were about to throw out). So a big recommendation there for Easy-PC based in Johnstone - details HERE.

We are using the old laptop to do this small update as we couldn't get the site admin working properly on the new laptop.  Since fixed - it seems to be an Explorer 8 problem (although it worked with IE8 on the old laptop) and it works OK with Safari, Firefox and Opera (not tried Chrome yet).

So ---- Updates

Racing:
Martyn dominated the O plate at 3 Sisters in March on his Saltire Racing prepared Gillard - setting fastest lap in each of the heats and securing good enough results to put him on the front row.  However he was fired of in turn one - rejoining last with virtually no chance of a result.  We will maybe get the video up in due course.

At the July Larkhall meeting, again with Saltire backing on a loaned Gillard he had another outing,  Results were a 6th from last on the grid in heat one.  He followed that up with wins in the remaining two heats - from 2nd and 10th on the grid.  This put him in pole for the final which he won comfortably.

Martyn is now considering how to fit in another race - the National Finals at Llandow.  Martyn likes that track and he races there twice in 2007 in the Motors TV National Championship where he qualified fastest and then in Super One where he just missed out on top qualifying place by 0.01s.  So if he can remember how the track goes he could go quite well.

Martyn starts a new job as an Engineer that week so if he does race he will need to travel down on Friday night = Llandow is a long way from home for him!!

Helmets

We have just finished two cracking paint jobs - for Cairen Haggerty - a nice new Bell helmet which he is wearing to campaign in the national Easykart championships.
The second one just completed is for Falkirk FC fan Richard McCulloch.
We are now in the middle of (just finished) another interesting design on Jordan Donaldson's Aria helmet.  Although it looks a bit orange in the photo it's actually fluorescent red.

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!!!