The SGP Motorsport Official sponsored Teesside Tigers Karting Team and Teesside Thunder EKL Teams travelled down to the Whilton Mill Karting in Northants this weekend, for round 5 of the The Karting League EKL championship! With the weather nothing of a concern other than perhaps it being very warm, all thoughts were on both teams having a strong day at a track which is liked amongst many of the drivers. 22 teams presented for the event with some new faces expanding the growing numbers over the course of the year. The Tigers fielded 3 of the regular team, namely Ian Neilson, Simon Marshall and Craig Brock with additionally one new member Scott McNicholas. Scott was to have a very strong day and will be a regular in the team for the remainder of the season. Initial views on the grid allocations for both teams indicated a trying day ahead where every place was going to count. Consistency was going to be the key and with only one win it seemed that indeed the day was going to be a difficult one. But with mostly top 10 finishes across both teams and 9 top 5 finishes across the two teams, all was not lost! After a count up the Tigers won the sprint overall and Thunder were close behind. On to the endurance where after a vote it was decided to increase the minimum weight to accommodate some of the teams with higher overall driver weights. This appeared to catch several teams out, and there were unfortunately several disqualifications due to being underweight both during and at the end of the 2 hour race. No such issues for the Teesside teams however, with Tigers coming home 2nd behind the Titans and Thunder coming home 3rd some 12 seconds behind. It was a day of penalties and controversy, but hopefully some lessons have been learnt and fortunately the local teams managed to keep mostly out of trouble to add some valuable points to the overall championship standings. After this weekend Thunder lie 2nd overall behind Teamsport Titan and Tigers have moved back up to 3rd overall. Between now and the next round at Rowrah in Cumbria, the Tigers will be looking for a repeat of the win in 2012 at the British 24 hour event held at Teesside Autodrome, this is on the 24th and 25th of August.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Jul 2013 09:19:39 +0000
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