2013-12-09 09:17:19.2
Eddie once again finished in 6th place after a puncture dropped him out of the lead in round 3 of the Man of Steel Winter series.
Eddie turned up at this race sporting a new patriotic helmet design courtesy of IMSD Racing team-mate, Ian Wilson. Team boss Stephen Deuchar was also present to give his suppiort.
Eddie qualified 6th overall and once again made a good start to round turn 1 in 4th place. This became third at the bottom of the hill when he took advantage of two drivers running wide while battling for second.
“I knew the start was going to be more difficult today because I was starting from the outside. Sure enough the guy down my inside blocked me out going into turn 1 so I decided to try my luck around the outside. Fortunately there was enough grip so it worked to my advantage."
Over the next couple of laps, Eddie moved from third into the lead and enjoyed a great battle with the other two leading drivers. The lead swapped a few times before Eddie established himself at the front, leading for nine laps.
He was running second and about to retake the lead when his race was effectively ended. As Eddie explained afterwards:
“Going into turn 1, I just dived down the inside of the leader when the back-end stepped out on me. I thought that someone had tapped me to start with but it kept snaking down the back straight, which can only mean a puncture at the rear.”
Although Eddie made it back to the pits and managed to rejoin the race, he had his work cut out.
“The Buckmore guys were very good and got me out in the leading pack again. The sad thing was that I went out on cold tyres and it took a good three laps for them to warm up. It also took a lap or so to get used to a slightly different handling kart so I lost a good amount of time there. After that it was just a case of pushing as hard as I could.”
Although Eddie made great progress after his puncture, he admitted that his progress was slowed down by traffic.
“The traffic wasn’t all that kind to me today. I didn’t do as good a job as the leaders did of carving through the back-markers and there were a few guys out there who didn’t appreciate being lapped so that cost me a lot of time.”
In the end, Eddie finished 7th overall and 6th in class, just over 20 seconds behind the race winner. As always, Eddie was philosophical about the events.
“Of course I’m disappointed because I think it would have a been a fantastic race. I was really enjoying the battle early on and I’m sure I would have been on the podium – possibly even on the top step because I certainly had the legs on the top guys.
“I’ve been around long enough to respect that these things happen from time to time so I’m not going to start throwing my toys out of the pram. I’m looking on the bright side – I was matching the leading guys and was lapping at the same pace as guys who are almost half my weight – that’s got to mean something!”
