2013-12-09 09:17:19.2
Eddie and Équipe Club100 missed scoring a podium finish on their debut in the Le Mans 24 Hour kart race after 3 engine failures and other mechanical glitches.
Eddie was racing in one of two teams representing Club100 in the annual event held at the famous Le Mans circuit in France. The two teams comprised Eddie, Stephen and Seth Deuchar, Dan Gore, Simon Young, Ashley Evans, Jordan Hill, Stuart Davis and Pete O’Connor.
Jordan’s Ministry of Speed outfit were also hampered with penalties and a nasty accident involving Stuart Davis, which saw him roll his kart and catch fire and left him with a dislocated shoulder. These incidents robbed them of an easy victory.
Meanwhile the Club100 team suffered 3 engine failures and an exhaust failure in the first 6 hours. Once the gremlins were rectified and the engine was operating on full power, the team did a fantastic job to claw back an almost insurmountable deficit to finish 7th on the road. Without the lost laps they would have finished in third place.
Eddie had mixed feelings about the event when quizzed after the race.
“It was a good experience and I’m glad I did it. I thought the track was fantastic and the atmosphere was brilliant. As an event I thought it pretty much blew! The organisers seemed to be making up the rules up as they went along, I thought they were pretty obnoxious people and certainly didn’t leave a good impression.”
Eddie was most critical about the weight handicapping system, labelling it as “stupid.”
“Given that there never seems to be any minimum weight limit in four stroke racing, I thought the basic concept was good. I thought the execution was a load of crap. It was far too harsh and most of the teams were cheating and the organisers didn’t seem to care. Basically we were penalised 13 laps for not cheating enough. I found that hard to swallow but the team did a fantastic job and once the engine was sorted we were running on the pace with the leaders and came very close to finishing on the podium, which would have been amazing.”
Eddie has said that he is unsure whether he would race in the event again.
”I’m not sure. At the moment I would say no. I’m glad I did it and it was a great experience but I’m used to racing in championships that are more professionally run. I really enjoyed the event and I thought the circuit was brilliant so if they could do something about the organisation I would go back in a heartbeat.”
