What a day it was! Many assumed the UK sporting calendar had reached its soaring apotheosis with all the excitement around the Olympics and Paralympics. Not so. Last Friday’s Insurance Endurance karting marathon at the internationally renowned Daytona Milton Keynes track only went and trumped them all! This was the event that quite literally had it all: go-karts, men in overalls, tarmac, tyres, bacon rolls… You name it, Insurance Endurance had it in spades!
Specifically, it had nearly 20 handpicked teams of death-defying demon drivers contending fiercely with one another in their super-fast karts as they tore round a twisting and turning track of tyre-trimmed tarmac for a full six hours, until at last one team emerged as the one to have gone round more times than any other. That team, as it turned out, was the team named psuck.com, closely followed by the one called Lamps Champs, of whose unfortunate brush with engine failure regular readers may recall having read in our previous “Live from Milton Keynes” edition.
Who or what psuck might be, Bankstone News, as usual, had frankly no idea. Seeking further information on these dark-horse mystery people, Bankstone News was aided in its investigations by the fact that the team’s name corresponded fortuitously with the website url of the organization in question. The home page explains succinctly that PSUCK “will help you select customised solutions for you and your company. Our website provides you with lots of important information about our comprehensive range of specialist services.” So now you know. ‘Well done you psuckers!”, we say here at Bankstone News.
There were lots of other teams there, of course, namely (in reverse order of being a bit rubbish) Sagicore 1, NCI Insurance, General Lee, Key Choice 2, Copart, Bankstone Racing (yay!), The Bike Insurer, Sagicore 3, Driver Cyst, Bankstone News (double yay!), Sagicore 2 (enough with the Sagicores already!), Ace Group, Bonne Chance (representing Group Armagh – see last week’s BN), Sleasycall, Key Choice 1, Au Revoir UK, and Glass Olutions.
Copart’s team included one swarthily surly individual bearing an uncanny resemblance to Bankstone News’ occasional motoring correspondent Marty Butch – although he strongly denied being, having met, or having even heard of Mr Butch – so it can’t have been him, Bankstone News supposes. In a sneaky attempt to wrest the coveted Pit Stop Challenge from its rightful owners, Bankstone Racing, Copart included several fitters from their motor vehicle disassemblage centre in their team.
Their evil plan came within an ace of succeeding, with all four tyre on the F1 racer off and on again in under 10 seconds. All went awry at the last, however, when trigger happy nut gunner Sara Stainsby on the “back wheel on the passenger side” (nearside rear) omitted in her excitement to supply the requisite nut tension – resulting ultimately in a less than triumphant time of 45.2 seconds. Fortunately, Sara was one of only a very small number of women permitted to sully the occasion with their lamentable want of masculinity.
Bikesure’s Simon Toop must surely scoop the award for most pleasing decorative accessory (i.e. for having one, not being one). He came dressed in a charming and elegant Bankstone Racing cap. Less subtly Lloyd Geddes came dressed head to foot as Spiderman, thereby making his reckless endangerment of other drivers and their vehicles all the more obvious to the track marshals (see last week’s again).
Bankstone Racing team member Damian Cross incurred the fierce derision of macho team boss Brawlin’ Dick Tyson for driving in golf gloves in a vain attempt to protect what Tyson described as “what Captain Redbeard Rum would describe as the hands of a woman”. All to no avail, sadly, Tyson reveals, as the unfortunate Cross ended up with blisters the size of “small dinner plates” as he completed the team’s final stint to secure a highly creditable 8th place – just 18 laps behind the winning team.
Pete Aikenhead nobly substituted for Bankstone News team leader Davy-Jane McManus who retired to the pavilion feeling “delicate” and muttering something about having a newsletter to write.
Major plaudits and nuff respect to Nick Keen for organising all the Bankstone Racing driver changes and to Steady Eddie Moule for resolutely ignoring all the pit boards calling him in – to the point where members of the pit crew were overheard discussing the lobbing of tyres at him as he sped merrily past yet again.
What larks, eh!
Be sure you don’t miss next year’s event, which promises to be even bigger and better – not least because it won’t be happening on the same day as the UK Broker Awards.
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