This was a weekend of trial and error. From the iDube test race (07 June 2009), we could see that we lacked some development of the Super Rok engine, although that test race went really well, it was not enough, as some more settings need to be changed due to the new 30mm Carburetor we now have to use from 2009 onwards.
It was a long, long weekend as we tried all sorts of different settings on the engine… We started off 6 tenths slower than the pole sitter. We only qualified 5th. I felt like I was in a Rotax Mini Max and the others in a 250 kart…My kart just felt like a lawn mower…I think it feels worse than it actually was… We have to start somewhere…
So we adjusted the carburetor for the 1st heat and it went a lot better. We finished 4th and we were 4 tenths off the fastest lap time. I could feel that we were making progress. It was baby steps at a time. The aim was to close down the gap to the quickest guy. So everything was looking positive… 
So the 2nd heat went better again. We finished 3rd and were 2 tenths off the quickest time. This heat was quite a battle as I was 4th initially and could not overtake the 3rd guy quick enough and the gap between us and the first two grew too big for me to catch up to them. I overtook the 3rd driver in about the 4th lap and then drove the kart to its maximum potential at the time to try and close the gap, I almost bent that gas pedal I was pushing it so hard…:-) , but their pace was just that fraction better and I finished 3rd.
In the last heat we did a drastic change to the engine and tried it as I had nothing to loose anyway as this race is not one that scores for the championship… At first I thought that this change was totally the wrong as in the warm up lap I could feel that it has no torque…I had a good start and overtook the 2nd driver and was in 2nd position. I was on the leader’s bumper and had very good bottom end. I could feel that this change was definitely the right thing to do; it just needed some tweaking now. The engine lacked top end at this stage, so the leader would drive a little away from me down the straight and I would catch him under breaking, through the corner and out of it…The only thing was, that he pulled a little more away than what I could catch in again, so the gap grew bit by bit. Eventually the 3rd guy overtook me again and I finished 3rd. We were just 1 tenth off the fastest driver now and that was good… A little tweaking to the engine and we will be right there!!!
All in all it was a very good test weekend. I want to go testing this weekend again as the 3rd round of the Vortex Super Rok National Series is on the 3rd and 4th of July and I do not have much time left to make sure I find that extra little bit of time….
That is all from me now…
Thanx for reading my Blog!!!
Fabienne
The weekend started upside down as we struggled to get to pace. We were about half a second off the pace. I tell you, I do not think I have ever changed so many sprockets in one weekend…We must have tried 6 different ratios and tried some of them a couple of times as we struggled our butt off to try and get up that massive of a gradient of a HILL. But we never got the combination right.
We often try to go testing at a track before it closes for a National Event. My next National event in the Super Rok will be held there at iDube on the 3rd/4th of July 2009. So this weekend will be the very important test weekend for this National event as we want to get the gearing and carburation for this track, so when the national weekend comes, we can fine tune the kart and do not need to run the risk of having to try radical set up changes….