Henry @ CKC

Saturday saw one of our new 2017 drivers take to the track for his first outing in a Honda Cadet. The CKC track provides an excellent training ground with a good mix of technical corners for drivers to learn their racecraft. The weather forecast was for heavy rain and for once, they got it right. It wasn’t long before every one had got a good soaking. On the plus side, the rain kept the fair weather racers indoors, so we had lots of track time, ideal for a new driver!

As Henry is currently waiting for his kart to be built, he was out in the Veneno Hire Kart so the morning saw a few minor adjustments to enable him to fit into the kart correctly. For his first session, arm bands would have been more appropriate than a race kart, but after careful instruction on lines from Ethan, Henry was doing well with only a single spin in his first session. The rain didn’t dampen his enthusiasm and he was back out for every session, slowly building his speed and concentrating on the lines he’d been given, reducing his lap times every session.

The lunchtime break gave Ethan and Des another opportunity to take Henry for a track walk, highlighting where he can adjust to help his driving. The afternoon sessions saw the rain finally stop, and although the track never dried, it did become slightly less slippery! Henry carried on in the same manner as the morning taking significant chunks of time off his best lap time and a full 1.5 seconds off in his final outing of the day.

Despite the challenging conditions, Henry has a very successful introduction to cadets. He’s still got a lot to learn but we can already see the desire to keep learning combined with a cheeky smile – the main ingredients needed to have fun and improve.

As well as Henry, #44 Harry and #29 Olly were also out on track doing battle with the weather. Both boys are novices and at different stages of racing but were equally pushing to improve their times and experience, even if one dad did send his son out without any air in one of his tyres!

TP note: Henry displayed a great level of focus and achieved what was asked at the right time in really difficult and uncomfortable conditions, to maintain this concentration on a day like this was an immense achievement and reflects the efforts made by all of our hard working cadet drivers across the country at this time of year