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The team suffered a nightmare in the 10 Hour du Var at the weekend. The normally hot and sunny south of France welcomed the drivers with wet weather and provided IMSD Racing with arguably their worst weekend in their history.
Eddie qualified the team in 10th place out of the 37 entries on Saturday. This was quite impressive as he was out in the middle group in super pole qualifying where the track was still damp.
Making a good start, Eddie moved straight up to fifth at the start and ran right up with the leading pack in fourth before handing over in the first round of pitstops. The team slipped back into their more natural position of 8th for the remainder of the race until the last stint when Seth was involved in an incident – being forced off the road and into a spin by another driver. The team finished a disappointing 15th.
Starting 15th for race 2, Eddie again made a great start to move into to 8th before being rammed off the road by Trois Coup De Feu at turn 3. Dropping to dead last, Eddie then went on a charge, carving his way through the field in the treacherous conditions and lapping two seconds faster than most of the other drivers. After only half of his stint completed Eddie was up to 13th but then ruined all his hard work by spinning off at the entry to the final chicane. Another spin from Ian Miller later in the race dropped the team back to a disappointing 20th.
Ian Wilson was nominated to start race 3 on the Sunday. Unfortunately he got stuck behind the slower karts at the back and then fell off the road at turn one whilst trying to avoid the spinning Mel Broxis in MiniRacers. This incident broke the engine mount and subsequently threw the drive chain, causing the gear sprocket to tear itself to shreds. The team then lost over 15 minutes while they waited for the mechanics to repair the damage. They then decided to get the kart tested and set up properly. Unfortunately the test driver also spun! Another spin from Eddie at the hairpin just compounded their woes and they finished 36th!
Eddie started the fourth and final race from the back of the grid. By this time the rain had returned. Making another good start, he followed Trevor Randall in Essex TT through the traffic and they both made a strategic splash and dash on lap 2 to get ahead of the pack. Making steady progress, the team were knocking on the door of the top 10. It was then Stephen’s turn to have the bad luck as he was shunted off the track at the notorious entry to the slow chicane. Again the team lost an engine mount and an exhaust and they had to pit for repairs, dropping them to the back of the field again. Not wanting to lose any more time, the team did not get the mixture adjusted and as a result were hampered in the second half of the race with poor bottom-end and sloppy handling. Not managing to make any more gains, the team finished way down in 25th place. |
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