This was another track new to Jess, over 200 miles away from home in Dorset. We came down early for the Academy Day on Saturday for extra practice and were able to fit in a little trip to the seaside afterwards!

Sunday brought lots of rain overnight. Jess has been lucky with weather this year and hasn’t had much wet driving since February. It was an area she had struggled with, but that last time in February showed some promising signs that she was getting to grips with it.

The Pre-Event testing was wet, particularly at the start. Jess finished 14th out of 22 in both sessions, but we were happy with this progress. She kept the kart on track in tricky conditions, and mostly seemed to lack a bit of confidence to find the limits as the track conditions improved.

In the warmup Jess was part of an all-female top three, finishing second fastest in her group with a time of 44.22s, less than two tenths from first.

In qualifying, she was marginally slower with a best lap of 44.28. This was still only two tenths from the pole position time, but some other drivers improved in this session and her time put her fifth fastest.

In the Heat race Jess started fifth. The pole side of the grid is usually on the right hand side of the track, giving the drivers on that side the inside line through the first sequence of corners. For some reason, this race saw the sides switched from the normal configuration, putting Jess on the outside going into the first few corners. She dropped a couple of spots early on as a result, before working her way back up to cross the line fourth. Despite not being put under investigation during the race, she still received a post-race penalty for contact that dropped her to 8th. Jess was adamant that she did not made contact and was quite upset as result, but with no right of appeal there was nothing we could do.

In the Pre-Final, Jess had the benefit of the inside line starting eighth. She made up some places in the opening laps and found herself running in fifth by lap 8. Approaching the end of the race, some drivers just ahead of her made contact whilst fighting for position and this slowed them down, with Jess unfortunately getting held up by this as well, more than others around her. As a result she dropped back to seventh, improving to 6th after penalties were awarded.

The results across the day meant Jess qualified for the A Final, starting in thirteenth. It had rained heavily before the B final and was still wet for the start of the A final. Jess got out of shape on the formation lap and this caused her to take too cautious an approach at the start of the race, dropping back several places. She showed top 10 pace mid-race but her times didn’t improve as much as others as the track dried and she couldn’t make any ground back.

There was obviously some disappointment that a penalty spoilt what could have been a stronger weekend, but it was good to see her showing strong pace in the dry races and being a lot more competitive in the wet than she has been. Plus she got to swim in the sea!

The next round is a much shorter trip to Hooton Park at the end of August!