Tag Archives: 6h

And that’s two! We won the 6 hours of FKI!

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The 6 hours of FKI has become a tradition through the years. This event is organized every year by Traxxis teammate Ward Maenhout at the karting track of FKI in Machelen. Every year, quite a few strong teams decide to take part, which makes this race very interesting.

This year, there were seven(!) Traxxis teams, a Bluestar team and as usual a team entered by DWT.

In comparison to last year, this year’s race was one six-hour race instead of a two times three-hour event. I decided to enter a team quite quickly. In the search for a quick teammate, I came across Mats de Jong once again. He was convinced quite quickly. I won the six hours with Mats three years ago and we ended second in the last two editions.

Qualifying was divided in three separate sessions of 10 minutes, 5 minutes and 1 lap respectively. Only during the first session we could swap drivers. We decided to let me start Q1. After three quick laps I came in to let Mats finish the session. On that moment, we were P1 with a margin of 0.2s on P2. Mats further improved and stayed on top during Q1. He repeated that performance during Q2 to miss out on pole by a very small margin after a small mistake in his quick lap.

Mats drove the first two hours of the race, which he did without any mistakes. He handed over the wheel to me with a 12s bonus on P2, DWT.

With two good karts I could extend our lead to just over a lap. After 20 minutes in my second kart, the front left axle broke which made me end up in the barrier. I was forced to step into a spare kart which was more than one second per lap slower than our previous one. DWT was catching us quickly. My third kart wasn’t too good either but I was able to keep the gap steady so I could hand over the wheel to Mats in P1.

With a fast and average kart, Mats could extend our lead to 50 seconds to P2.

I got in for the last stint. When all kart changes were done, the gap with DWT was a little over 30 seconds, with 40 minutes remaining. With an average kart, I lost some time to DWT, but not enough to bring our lead in danger. With a little under twenty minutes left, I decided not to take any more risks. DWT gained a bit more time from then on, but they finished about nine seconds behind us, which meant we won the six hours of FKI for the second time! Bluestar completed the podium after a strong comeback.

 

6h FKI night race

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Saturday the 25th of February the fifth edition of the 6h of FKI was held.
I formed a team with Mats dJ where we used our usual teamname Traxxis CU@Finish.

Mats drove the qualification which was divided in three different heats of five minutes where the average of the best three laptimes counted. Mats placed us second on the grid behind DWT.

This years edition existed out of two seperate three hour races. One in normal direction and one in reverse direction. Mats was driving another race on sunday so we decided I was doing the last part of the second race.

Mats’ start kart was really good. After only five laps he could pass DWT to take the lead. He managed to build a nice advantage to our closest competitors of about 9,5s untill he accidently came in the pits too early. He lost his advantage but managed to stay in the lead. Our second and third kart were a lot less quick whilst our competitors had one kart that was faster which eventually made the difference. Mats drove the whole race and ended it on P2. His mistake in the pits hadn’t cost us any place so it didn’t really matter in the end, everyone can make a mistake.

The grid positions were swapped per two karts for the second race. P2 became P1, P1 became P2 etc,… Because Mats finished P2 in the first race I could start the second race from pole. I knew my first kart was not good so I decided to defend my position from the beginning to try and stay in the lead untill the first kart change because I also knew our second kart was a lot better. However my plan seemed to work at first, I got crashed into the wall after only five laps by Kevin Caprasse en this without any sanction. I dropped back to third and it didn’t take long before P4 and P5 passed me too. Luckily I didn’t loose too much time in comparison to the leaders although it could’ve been much closer if it wasn’t for such a scandalous action in the beginning.

With the second kart I was fastest on track quite often while our closest competitors, DWT, had my first kart. Their advantage decreased rapidly which put me back in front of them. Every race there were two mandatory driver changes. Mats and I solved this by doing these changes immediatly after each other. This gave us the possibility to drive one race each.

With the last kart I was slower than DWT and with 30 minutes to go Felipe Vieira was right behind me. The duel for second place, and more important, for the overall win, started. Even if DWT finished third in this race they would’ve won with a one point advantage over Mats and me although I saw Jeroen Vatlet, in fourth position, getting closer quite a lot so everything was still possible. I tried to defend as hard as I could without going over the limit of what was acceptable and what was not.

About 20 minutes before the end Kevin Caprasse joined the fight although he was one lap behind so he had nothing to win anymore. He managed to ‘pass’ Felipe quite easy. Wat followed next were 10 minutes of pushing and bumping untill Felipe managed to pass Kevin again. Two laps later Felipe launched himself into the side of my kart. The impact was hard enough to bend the right front of my kart. Luckily I got a spare kart and I was allowed to resume the race in front of Felipe. However I didn’t loose any time, I did expect a penalty at least for such a scandalous action. Within 5 minutes Felipe decided to push me in the back so he could pass me, again no penalty was given. Within the same lap Kevin Caprasse rammed me at the fastest part of the track causing me to crash into the wall at 40-50 km/h. Keep in mind he had nothing to win in that duel as he was already a lap down.

I eventually finished the race in third position but I couldn’t care about the result anymore. The fact that almost everyone saw those moves (including the owner of the track) but no penalties were giving still bothers me.

Mats and I eventually became second overall, not a bad result with 26 teams participating although I was pretty frustrated about the fact that such actions were allowed.