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20 July 2008PFi Super One
Round 4 arrived and Luke was eager to make up for the disappointment of Buckmore Park a month earlier. The weekend turned out to be bit of an eye opener.
Friday practice started late for Luke due to clerical reasons, so he only managed 4 sessions and only 12 laps in those combined. The bugs from round 3 were clearly still lurking, because Luke's clutch disengaged again. With only a single engine to work with, Luke had to make the best of what he had. During Saturday's practice session, Luke found a heavy vibration on the chassis, probably a result of the damage from the final at Buckmore Park, replacements were found but even they didn't hold up. The steering snapping when Luke braked to go into hairpin 1 and Luke had to limp back to the pits with three wheels. However, it was not all doom and gloom, when Luke borrowed an engine from a team mate he lapped 8 tenths of a second faster than previously and less than 5 tenths off of the championship's front runners.
Come Saturday's timed qualifying it seemed the worst was over. Unfortunately, the brake pads wore to fast and could not make contact with the disk so there was no way of stopping the kart efficiently. Luke decided to bring the kart in to save the tyres for race day. Sunday morning showed Luke's potential again, making up places in heat one only for the new brake pads to foul the disk and retire Luke from the race. Heat two was more successful, with Luke coming from third on the grid to lead into the first two corners before coming home in the midfield. Heat 3 and a back marker denied Luke the opportunity to stay on the back of the train. By the final, it was evident that this round was little better than Buckmore Park, a heavily disappointed Luke went into the B Final with something to prove. Starting from the back of the grid, Luke quickly gained positions before the technical gremlins meant that Luke could not run competitive lap times. Despite this issue, Luke still came home ahead of 7 others in a respectable 21st.
With a summer break ahead, Luke will now head off to the test track to diagnose chassis and engine problems before the next round in Cumbria.