November 2023 I finally got on track at Skegness, hiring a Stoxkart for the day.
In Heat 1 starting from the back, I was trying to get smooth round, not realising my method of doing that was putting me on a not so great driving line. I think I got lapped twice, but managed to finish the race.
For Heat 2 I opted to start with the whites, as I wanted to be more in the action, and boy was I ever! I don’t think my driving line helped my cause or my method of trying to get round unscathed. I was collected on a corner and spun and got a nice view of the clouds. Although feeling fine and wanting to continue, my wheel guard was broken and my race receiver had come out so it was in to the infield.
For the Final, I stayed with starting with the whites and abandoned what I was trying to do in the Heats and although I didn’t feel like I was as slow I was slowly getting passed until I was in 10th when I almost got spun on the same corner, I recovered it and continued but lost momentum. It was then just a game of getting some track time, trying to keep out the way and actually finish a Final. It was all going to plan until the 1 lap to go board came out, I got spun between turns 3 and 4, leaving me parked up on the bend so not to cause any incident.
Time for the Grand National and my last race of the day, starting inside row two of the whites. The flag dropped and something just clicked, for the first two laps I wasn’t getting lost for dust and seemed to be keeping up, this might be a good race! Enter the red flags and a complete restart, I’d have to try again.
The flag dropped on the restart, and it started off the same as a few minutes prior, but I was actually catching 2nd place. I gained a fair bit of space between turns 3 and 4, so when I got back round to turns 1 and 2, I drove too hard in to it and pushed a little too much on the brake, causing my car to start bouncing and killing any sort of momentum as I tried to correct it, and dwindled down the places, the saving grace being that I manged to finish the race and was only lapped once.
All in all I’ve had an absolutely cracking day, DT Motorsport were absolutely spot on and nothing was a hassle, even when I managed to break it. Thanks for looking after me today.
The StoxKarts race teams and familes I spoke to were all great, I just hope I didn’t get in the way on track too much and lastly, thanks to Ian Stoxkarts Higgins for putting me at ease, informing me any chance he could I was in the Death Trap.
Looking forward to getting my ‘I Survived the Death Trap’ sticker! 
If anybody is thinking of doing it next year, just go for it; you’ll be surrounded by awesome people and you’ll learn so much, even just being on track. Here’s to 2024!
