With Leeds looking the likely venue for the third and final York race of the year, it was important to go and get some more practice there in order to give some sort of an advantage. Here came the decision to join the Monday Night Club, an open endurance race, which would be just £15 for about 35 minutes of driving, even though this time we all had to pay £15 membership fee as well. This was still a cheaper alternative to holding an exclusive event at the track, due to the very high prices involved.
And so, 12 HUGS drivers headed down to Leeds, 7 of whom had been there back in January. With it being mainly teams of 4 or 5, the three HUGS teams were split evenly as follows:

KART 4
Will Russell
Sam Jackson
Preece Stewart
Jon Beagles

KART 7
Nick Drewett
Alex Tweed
Mike Miller
Josh Overhill

KART 10
Keith Herbert
Amy Charles
Tom Smith
Mark Foley

In some respects, it was still a bit of a trip into the unknown, with no-one knowing what the standard was going to be like. For all we knew, the standard could have been extremely high and we would have been struggling at the back, or the standard could have been pretty poor, and we would have walked it.


The race, a 2 and a half hour endurance, got underaway after no qualifying or practice whatsoever, with the karts going in number order, hence our teams being 4th, 7th and 10th. It didn't take us long to realise that the standard was extremely high, and there were clearly several teams who came down every week. Soon enough, the quicker drivers were at the front, with Will, Nick and Keith, who had started the race, all locked in a battle in the midfield, with karts swapping positions almost every corner where it was actually possible to pass.
Meanwhile, the driver of kart 13 was causing much amusement and entertainment to those watching, being about 8 seconds a lap off the pace, taking somewhat bizzare lines into the corners, yet defending for his life whenever another kart came up to lap him. He also caused a handful of collisions, and was no doubt causing other drivers much frustration.
Then came a controversial moment in the race. Nick had been following a kart who was clearly slower than him, and when Nick finally got a chance to pass, going into Turn 9 (the left-hand hairpin after the dip), the other kart slid into the corner, causing Nick to swipe the side of the kart and send him spinning. The rather over-zealous marshall did not hesitate in showing the black flag, clearly having not heard of the term "racing incident" and no-one who worked at the track appeared to have heard of black and white flags, which would have been much more appropriate. The black flag had cost team 7 nearly a lap, sending them down to about 12th whereas they would have been about 7th.
The three HUGS teams made their driver changes in quick succession, with Sam, Alex and Amy now at the wheel of karts 4, 7 and 10 respectively. For a while, the three were separated by about 10 seconds, on the same lap, running 9th, 10th and 11th out of 16. Sam's experience on the track showed, and he soon passed both Alex and Amy and set about closing in on the 8th placed kart. The gap between the three quickly opened up, and became a lot bigger when Amy was caught up in a collison. Amy, suffering from tiredness and an injury from the collision, asked to be called in about 10 minutes early, and Tom Smith took over.
Kart 13's second driver was causing similar amounts of comedy, again miles slower than anyone else, causing more collisons, and not to mention his bizzare old-fashioned motorbike helmet.
Sam handed over to Preece, his first time karting with HUGS, whilst the impressive Alex handed over to Mike. Mike trying to bridge a gap of just under a lap to Preece, which he did so over the course of his stint, and with Tom also in close proximity. This meant that the final three drivers, Jon in kart 4, Josh in kart 7 and Mark in kart 10, were all set for a close race in a bid to be the highest placed HUGS team, although the battle was now for 10th, 11th and 12th. After solid drives from Preece, Mike and Tom, the three set about trying to win the private race between the three HUGS teams.
However, the battle was short-lived, as came the second controversial decision by the marshall. The driver of the leading team attempted a rather ambitious move round the outside of Josh going into Turn 9, which was never going to work. Josh had nowhere to go but into the side of him. The marshall clearly believed Josh should have rolled out the red carpet and almost unbelievably showed the black flag, to Josh's dismay. Josh did not hold back in telling the marshall what he thought, but now two dodgy decisions had ruined Team 7's race and had now dropped behind both Jon and Mark as well as another team and were now down in 13th. It was near impossible to close the gap to Jon and Mark, although Jon did give a bit of hope when he pulled into the pits to remove his hair-net which was obscuring his vision.
But that was how it stayed, with Team 4 the highest of the three HUGS teams in 10th, 12 laps behind the winning team, but a lap ahead of 12th-placed Team 10, who in turn was just 33 seconds ahead of Team 7 in 13th. Given the extremely high standard, we certainly didn't disgrace ourselves, and should Part 3 of Hull v York be held at Leeds, Hull have every reason to be confident of winning not just that race, but the series overall.


FASTEST LAP CLASSIFICATION
1. Jon Beagles 43.626
2. Nick Drewett 44.065
3. Mark Foley 44.505
4. Josh Overhill 44.625
5. Will Russell 44.645
6. Sam Jackson 44.686
7. Keith Herbert 44.874
8. Alex Tweed 45.534
9. Mike Miller 46.093
10. Tom Smith 46.981
11. Preece Stewart 47.198
12. Amy Charles 48.097

RESULTS EXTRACT

10. Team 4 - 184 laps - +12 laps
12. Team 10 - 183 laps - +13 laps
13. Team 7 - 183 laps - +13 laps