The forecast a week ago was for the race weekend to be raining but it gradually changed to good weather as the date drew nearer. Indeed, the weather was good over the race weekend.
The environment was more stressful than the regional races for Alvis, still lacking race experience.
His practice started on Thursday afternoon to learn the track, though official practice was on Friday.
They were the first category for practice, and the track was really sandy. Everyone was 2 to 3 seconds off the pace.
Alvis just had to adapt to the track conditions, like everyone else. At this point, setup was pointless since the track conditions for the race wouldn't be like this. Alvis just concentrated on his driving, as the lap timing decreased till sunset.
As for Friday, everyone of his category showed up, and they had to split the practice into odd numbers and even numbers. The track started to get heavily rubbered by the 235 drivers throughout the day. For the 3 recorded practice sessions that they had, Alvis was 4th for the 1st and 2nd sessions and 7th in the last one, being 1, 2, and then 3 tenths respectively off the pace of the pole of his group.
Alvis pushing hard through the last corner onto the main straight
For the race weekend, they had a total of 1 time trial on Friday, 3 heats on Saturday and the prefinal and final on Sunday.
At national level, Alvis knew having a 3 tenths of improvement is a lot. He had to push for the time trial to make up his lack of race experience.
Alvis went out, with fresh new tyres, and gave it his all. He was improving each lap, but caught up with a backmarker on his final lap, dropping him from about 3rd to 9th on the final lap. Alvis didn't realise everyone was slipstreaming for the extra 2 tenths advantage, and would do so for the next race.
Alvis going through the chicane, kissing the kerb
Top 37 of the time trial
Alvis qualified 16th, so group D. meaning he would start 8th for all his heats. The first heat was between group C and D. He lost 2 places at the start, due to the reverse effect of the first corner, Alvis jumped into the interior for turn 1, and was on the losing end on the exterior for turn 2. He managed to squeeze back into the interior to defend his position into turn 3. Everyone was glued until lap 4, where there was a 3 kart collision. Alvis managed to dodge it, promoting him to 7th. But he soon lost them and by lap 7, he was 9th. At turn 1 of the 8th lap, Alvis was involved in a crash dropping him all the way down to 14th, losing 5 places. Alvis managed to overtake 2 of them back on the last lap, and drag raced one to the finish line, finishing in 11th.
C-D Heat Results
Next was B-D. Beside his teammate on the grid, they went out for the formation lap and lined up. This time, Alvis stayed in the middle of the track to not get tricked on the start, and gained a place by turn 2, just in front of his teammate. Though having a great start, due to Alvis' lack of race experience, starting from lap 2, he just kept dropping down the order though having the front runners' pace.
Next was A-D. Alvis' tyres were starting to wear out as well, as Alvis' driving style didn't suit the heavily rubbered track. Alvis repeated the same procedure for the start, gaining a place. However, Alvis got hit out on turn 9, causing him to spin out, losing 5 places. Everything got worst as he came back on track, losing more and more places. This experience would help Alvis on his next big race, handling all this pressure, tyre management.
Alvis qualified 29th for the prefinal
Alvis knew this wasn't his pace, and overtook 2 of them right off the bat into 27th on the first lap, but got stuck behind the 26th. On lap 4, Alvis was unlucky, getting hit from behind on corner 13, spun out and couldn't start the kart. End of prefinal for him. Alvis had to start at the back for the final.
Starting 34th, the start was very tight, Alvis managed to squeeze through to overtake the 33rd and 32nd, defended his position through the whole lap, and then overtook another 12 karts till lap 9 to 22nd. He outbroke the 21st on the last lap, and due to penalties in front, he was promoted to 20th.
Alvis crossing the start/finish line in 20th
Final results
Alvis' expectations were higher, but it was a good experience for him. He will learn from this race.
We thank 3MK Events for organising NSK, the marshals, the race commission, Le Mans Karting International staff, Malevaut Sport and Aurélien.
Stay tuned! Another post coming up soon!
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