On Wednesday 25th November 2009, Hull took 6 teams to Teesside Autodrome, the spiritual home of inter-university racing for those in Yorkshire and the North East, for this years' edition of the competition between Hull, York and Durham. Despite some very strong performances from the Hull drivers, they were ultimately edged out by York by just 2 points, but everyone can take heart from the way they drove in absolutely horrible conditions, and in truth it could have gone either way; York could not have had any complaints had Hull won.
In the race itself, Hull’s A team of Imran Khan, Mark Foley and Josh Overhill were seemingly the quickest team on track, but their progress was hampered in unfortunate circumstances as one of their karts’ engines cut out at both driver changes, resulting in an out lap having to be done on one engine before losing a lot of time by returning to the pits on both occasions. Josh’s late charge was not enough, as they had to settle for second behind York’s A team (who had no such trouble), by an agonising 3.5 seconds. Such was the dominance, the 3rd place team was over 2 laps behind.
Hull would see 4 of their teams in the top 8, with the B team of Sam Jackson, Tom Smith and Liam Lau in 5th, just 4 seconds behind Durham A. The D team of Kevin Gambles, Pete Szedlak and Marcus Stuttard finished 7th, a brilliant effort considering all 3 had never driven at the track before and all were new to HUGS this year. The C team finished 8th, having suffered similar problems to the A team (but on a bigger scale), their drivers being Will Russell, Mike Miller and Phil Skop, with Phil setting the 3rd fastest lap of the race, after Josh and 1 from York’s alumni team.
With each universities’s top 4 teams counting towards the overall points, York narrowly edged out Hull with 32 points to 30, whilst Durham lagged far behind on a distant 16. York fielded an Old Boys team under the agreement they would be ineligible for points, but rather ironically, they could only manage 12th after numerous kart problems, and were behind York’s top 4 teams.
A full report and results to follow
