The long weekend of 28th-31st August is one that will stick in the memories of 8 past and present DCU KartSoc members for a very long time. In what was a first for the society, we made the trip to the Teesside Karting track in Middlesbrough, England, where we undertook a grueling 24 hour "Le Mans style" endurance race. Yes you read that right...24 HOURS!!! In what can no doubt be described as an epic event, the DCU team performed well, both overall and in our class.

In the early hours of Friday 28th, 6 drivers made the way to Dublin Airport for 5 a.m., many of whom had decided it wasn't worth it to go to sleep the night before, and one of whom thought that a night in Coppers was just what he needed to prepare for a 24 hour endurance race. Team Manager Jimmy Ryan, 2008/09 DCU Champion Mark Egan, Kev Martin, Declan Clarke and V-go ...<insert pronounceable surname here> all waited in the airport for Hall-of-Famer Tom Kearns to come back from a night on the beer and reach the departures area. After Tom finally arrived at nearly 6 o'clock because "traffic was awful" (and not because he was locked/fell asleep/pulled/forgot etc) we made a quick dash to the boarding gate and got on the plane to Newcastle.

The final 2 members of the team, ex-chair and current Clubs 'n' Socs Officer Willie Coyne and Jeff Dalton made the journey late on Friday evening by ferry. While the official reason for this was that Willie could then drive over with all of the gear for the race...the unofficial reason was because a certain someone having 2 repeat exams on the Friday kinda forced our hand on this. Keep reading down for an account of this from rookie driver Jeff (i'm trying to keep to a sort of timeline with this :D).

So the 6 of us landed in Newcastle at about half 8 in the morning and a short wait later, we were on a minibus headed for Middlesbrough. To be honest, I don't remember much of the bus trip because I got almost an hour of shut eye, as I think many of the others did aswell but at about 9.30-10.00 we got dropped off at the gate of the Teesside Karting track. Over the next ten minutes or so, we realised what we had gotten ourselves into.

From the second we entered the gate, we saw team buses, motorhomes, camper vans and karts on stands being built from scratch before our very eyes by team's own mechanics. We, were a couple of young lads, slightly sleep deprived with a hand-luggage bag each and a tent arriving by ferry the next day. As Tom put it, quoting Top Gear, "Lads, we've brought a knife to a gun fight!" A sharp sense of realism came over us when we realised that, compared to almost everyone else here, we were amateurs.

Regardless, and in true DCU KartSoc fashion, we decided to plow on anyway. We were here for a fantastic weekend, and no matter where we came on the grid, we were determined to make that happen. We had some free time before we were to register and weigh-in so we decided to get our bearings and went for a walk of the track. We were thoroughly impressed. At 2.1km, it is a huge track, longer than anything we've ever raced on, and pretty much anything on offer in Ireland. As mentioned on the track page, the stand-out section of the track was the 7-apex chicane at the end of the back straight that we found could be taken flat-out, a truly nervy experience on your first few laps.

Not long after we got off the track, practice started for the Pro and Clubman classes. These were teams who had brought their own karts, had sponsorship, mechanics, the works. There were about 30 of these teams driving this weekend and while we knew we weren't competing with them as they would have finer tuned engines, lighter karts, be aerodynamically better with nassau panels at the front of the kart etc., we would love to finish the weekend scalping a few of them.

Once we were able to register, we went into the office and noticed on the table at the side, there were shiny new helmets for sale. At £35, down from £125 we all decided that it was too good an offer to refuse and of the 6 of us there, 5 of us invested in our own helmets. We got a quick look at the weighting handicap for our class, the hire class (as we were hiring a kart from the track) and then decided to suit up and hit the scales. If the average of the team was 65kg or lower, we lost 10 laps after the race, 95 kg or above, and we gained 10 laps. At 118kg, Team Manager Jimmy "Pound for Pound" Ryan acted more as ballast than anything else as he balanced out Clarkey at 65kg, also the weight Jeff Dalton would clock in at the next day. And while you may think 118kg is very heavy, bear in mind that Jimmy was wearing his Karting Jacket and jeans underneath his race-suit...and may have had an ipod or 2 in his pocket. :D



So we finally got a chance to look at our kart in the pit lane, an hour before our practice began. Right beside us in the pit lane were Team America, yes that's right, we had an entire country in our class!!! When I say these guys came to do well, I mean it! Before practice had even started, they had changed their steering wheel to one which had more grip and was easier on the arms, changed their seat, added in one of their own transponders to clock their lap times and had kitted their kart out with stickers and advertising decals. We...gave the tyres a kick or 2 to check the pressure...eh...made sure the pedals and steering wheel worked...and eh...got to grips with turning the engine on and off. Preparation done!


For the 3 hour practice, we had 6 drivers and a 2 hour tank of fuel. We took our time, gave everyone about 25-30 mins to get used to the track and when they came in, assessed the kart, the track, the competition and ourselves. By assessing ourselves, we discovered that as some of us hadn't karted for quite a while that our hands and arms were tiring fast. We felt this would limit our stint time in the race. We recorded driver lap times by the official motorsport standard that is the stopwatch on our mobile phones. From these times, it was decided that Mark would be doing our qualifying session the next morning as he was our fastest driver.

Personally, the adrenalin rush of going out in the kart, flooring it coming out of a corner and zipping through the chicanes was unmatchable, and, I have never risked shitting myself more than when, after passing through the first 3 apexes on the flat-out chicane section, you see a kart practically at a standstill in between the 4th and 5th apex. That split second of panic where you realise any contact could end your weekend, even worse, only being in the practice session is absolutely terrifying! Slamming on the brakes, the kart completely spins and sliding sideways across the grass at top speed realising you are only a passenger, the only thing going through your mind is "OH FUCK!!!" As we had been told in the pre-practice briefing, at any sign of dangerous driving on the track, we would be black flagged and called into the pits for a chat with the marshals. Low and behold, a lap later, I got the black flag. I came into the pits to discover something extremely chilling. Why was I pulled in? Because my chin strap had come completely loose and the only thing keeping my helmet on was gravity and my fat head. The reason this was so chilling, is that the marshals had discovered this in the lap before my spin and were already going to pull me in. It was not until after I got out of the kart that the what-ifs really sunk in. What if I hit the slow kart head-on at top speed? What if, missing the other kart, on the spin-out, I bounced over an apex? At any point, the helmet could have flown off my head and become a ballistic weapon across the track. Along with that, I would have no protection if the kart flipped...I did not get back into the kart to finish my practice...

The practice session finished up not too long after this so we headed to Middlesbrough for the evening to check into the Travel Lodge. We were absolutely shattered as we had gotten about 3 hours sleep from the Thursday morning. We cleaned up and hit the town to find a good meal before bed. We eventually found a Pizza Hut where we milked as much as we could from the free refills offer. On the way home, we realised we were going to be at the track for well over 30 hours from Saturday through to Sunday so we needed supplies. 4 shopping baskets full of energy drinks, jaffa cakes, 5 litre water bottles and sweets were bought, the over-riding thought being...we're racing for 24 hours! So as we all sat in our rooms to watch the end of the Super Cup match between Barcelona and Shaktar, every single one of us konked out so quickly that noone could say what the result was the next morning. Our busy Friday was finishing, while Willie's and Jeff's weekend experience was only just beginning.

Here's Jeff's account of how they got there:

On a completely different form of transport were two "ace" drivers Willie Coyne and Jeff Dalton. We unfortunately drew the shot straw and had to get the ferry from Dublin Port to Holyhead and then drive the 4 hour journey to Middlesbrough.

On Friday evening, we met up in DCU, Willie in a foul mood after having his laptop stolen, and stocked up on junk food, Lucozade and the all important Red Bull. At about half 7, and with a car tightly packed full of luggage and karting gear, we set off for Dublin Port and boarded the ferry with time to spare. We made a series of "documentary style" interviews and then found a quiet place to lie down. (Editor's note: "...a quiet place to lie down"? Something you and Willie aren't telling us Jeff?)

At about 1 o'clock in the morning we raced off the boat in helmets and race gear, sat navs and maps, crisps and Red Bull. The struggle began!...The struggle, that was, to stay awake for the next 4 hours as we drove miles and miles of motorway roads, trying to keep each other awake, almost resorting to sellotaping our eyelids open. All this while the rest of our team-mates were tucked up in bed in Middlesbrough's luxurious Travel Lodge. (Hoi! Don't be jealous. Ya make your bed and ya lie in it...or not as he case may be :P). At roughly 5 o'clock, we arrived in one piece in Middlesbrough, got just over 2 hours sleep and were woken to head to the race track for practice, race-briefing and most importantly, the race. ZZZZZzzzzz......

Thanks Jeff! Now, back to Jimm!. So, we got our taxi's from the hostel, tailed by Willie to the track, and the nerves really began to set in as we knew the next 30 odd hours were going to be magnificent. Having gotten Willie and Jeff registered and weighed-in, we found out that in our class, we would receive an extra lap, thanks in large part to yours truly. Also, thanks to Willie driving over, we now had a tent to put up where we could get a bit of kip if we were tired. I have to say, it was possibly the most complicated 8-man tent I had ever seen, and what didn't help at all was the fact that we were pitching on a raised area, getting pelted by wind and trying to hammer pins into a ground which was made of stone with our hands, shoes and rocks. After about an hour, we got the tent up and in that time, Willie and Jeff had gotten 15 mins of practice on the track each and Mark had set our qualifying time on a packed track and got us into about 38th position overall out of 66 teams, which was very good considering over 30 teams showed up with their own karts.

As the time got closer to 12 o'clock, the tension was building all around the track and in the paddock. The organisers ran the pre-race briefing and while there was a light-hearted mood floating around, you could sense that it was all bravado as an intense 24 hour session was about to begin where simple mistakes could cost you a race...and everyone knew it. From 11.30, the karts made their way around the track to line up for what was going to be a "Le Mans" style start with the karts lined up on one side of the road, engines on, with another team member holding it steady. On the other side of the track, the driver would wait for the green flag to wave and then sprint over the track, leap into the kart and take off. We had Mark starting off for us, with Tom and his helmet cam providing a close up view fo the start.

MORE TO COME SOON!