British 24 Hour Kart race

[sully]

Myself & a couple of friends are looking at entering next years British 24 Hour Kart race in up in Teesside. I was wondering if anyone else on this forum had entered this event in the past & if so, be able to give us a bit of advice.
We will be entering the hire kart catorgory as we can't afford to buy our own kart, what would be the optimum number of drivers in a teams be etc...

Many thanks in advance.

[Gore]

I entered the Teesside race in 2006, after which I swore I would never do another 24 hour race again (which lasted until the beginning of this month when I entered the Le Mans 24 hour organised by the same company...).

The two times I've done 24 hour races it's been in teams of six drivers. I think four is the minimum feasible (some friends tried to do Le Mans as a team of three this year and struggled, especially after one of their drivers got taken off to hospital after a bad crash 11 hours in), but any more than six and some drivers will only be getting one stint behind the wheel, which isn't much seat time for giving up an entire weekend. (I'm assuming here that you'll plan to run the maximum two hour stints that the tank range will allow for, which is necessary to be competitive.)

Given the length of the stints you end up running we've found it useful in the past to run an Alfano if you have one or can borrow one; watching the laptimes helps with keeping focussed one hour into a two hour stint at 3am on a cold wet morning...

One extremely important tip I can give you for Teesside is that, as there are no pit buildings, a tent or awning in which to sit down, sleep and shelter from the elements is an absolute must. Other than that, I'd recommend warm clothes, a sleeping bag, lots of water and a barbecue (otherwise you'll be spending a lot of time at the local McDonalds).

A final point to note about the Teesside endurance races is that the organisers don't use ballast for the hire kart classes, but weigh drivers to calculate each team's average weight and allocate a lap handicap based on that. In my humble opinion this system massively overstates the penalty of weight, and heavily penalises lighter teams. Moreover, the organisers appear to turn a blind eye to widespread cheating; at Le Mans we queried why our team had received a penalty of 13 laps, with the next "lightest" team at six laps and visibly no heavier than us, and were effectively told it was our own fault for not cheating as well as everyone else. As a competitive event, therefore, Teesside's 24 hour races take place on the scales beforehand, rather than at the race track. So if you're taking the race seriously, I would recommend gaining as much weight as possible in the next 12 months...

Regardless of the organisation and the somewhat dubious (and variable) standard of the hire karts, a 24 hour race is certainly an experience worth taking part in; it's also, as I'm sure you're aware, very cheap for the amount of track time. Plus the Teesside circuit's quite a good one to drive in pro-karts.

Dan Gore.

[sully]

Originally Posted by Gore

A final point to note about the Teesside endurance races is that the organisers don't use ballast for the hire kart classes, but weigh drivers to calculate each team's average weight and allocate a lap handicap based on that. In my humble opinion this system massively overstates the penalty of weight, and heavily penalises lighter teams. Moreover, the organisers appear to turn a blind eye to widespread cheating; at Le Mans we queried why our team had received a penalty of 13 laps, with the next "lightest" team at six laps and visibly no heavier than us, and were effectively told it was our own fault for not cheating as well as everyone else. As a competitive event, therefore, Teesside's 24 hour races take place on the scales beforehand, rather than at the race track. So if you're taking the race seriously, I would recommend gaining as much weight as possible in the next 12 months...

How can people cheat if they supposedly weigh you? Not that i want to cheat, but the information would be great assistance.

[MagnetON]

Originally Posted by sully

How can people cheat if they supposedly weigh you? Not that i want to cheat, but the information would be great assistance.

Hold in your turds and stick a lump of lead pipe up your bum until after you've been weighed!

[Gore]

Originally Posted by MagnetON

Hold in your turds and stick a lump of lead pipe up your bum until after you've been weighed!

Yes, quite...

Clearly cheating would be a terrible idea, but I've heard of teams approaching the scales with leads weights in their pockets or hidden under bulky jumpers; alternatively, some have weighed in particularly corpulent "drivers" who raise the average team weight but don't then actually appear in the kart at any stage of the 24 hours...

I'm sure you're above all those things, however Sully!

[sully]

Just out of interest, if you can remember, what did most of your team weigh, we have a couple of smaller lads but they will hopefully be balanced out by 2 larger guys

[Gore]

I think our team at Le Mans averaged 68 kilos, which equated to a handicap of 13 laps.

[dave not neil]

Hi there, regards the weight stuation. Does this only apply to hire karts? I'll be racing there next week in my own kart, so no we still need to use ballast on the kart?