Rok Cup 2015
25 April 2015, KF1 Circuit

Thanks to Uncle Rick (on extreme left), who was Jon’s mechanic on Friday.

Uncle Peter (on extreme left) was helping Jon on his kart seat setting.

It was a whole new experience for Jon to kart and race for the first time in a MS Kart mated to a ROK DVS engine. And we are glad to announce that Jon will be racing under the Senior DVS as a sponsored driver with Element Motorsports Team. Many thanks to Uncle Peter for this fantastic opportunity.

After classes in school ended on Friday afternoon, Jon headed straight to the KF1 circuit for the kart seat setting. With only half a day left, setting up his ‘new’ kart proved to be very challenging. In addition, he had to quickly get accustomed to the unfamiliar track. Unfortunately it was raining the whole afternoon and Jon was not able to run-in his engine till late evening. There is almost no dry setting data as the track was still wet till the last session which ended at 10pm.

Unlike most races that start early in the morning, the ROK Cup kick-starts at 12.35pm with a drivers briefing followed by the first and only 8-minute official practice session for drivers in the Senior DVS category.

The early afternoon practise session was conducted in the dry with very worn tires. Anticipating better times with new tires, no further adjustment was done on the kart. Nevertheless, come Qualifying in the afternoon, a sudden thunderstorm resulted in a declaration of Wet Race.

Qualifying did not end well for Jon as he only managed to secure position 6. It was discovered that the team has got the gearing all wrong even from yesterday. Jon’s kart was losing out too much when coming out of corners. With that, a much bigger sprocket was changed and the team waited anxiously for Final 1.

Picture courtesy of Mr Bernard Seah

Final 1 was a wet race too as the track has not dried yet. It was a straight forward race without much incident and Jon was able to secure position 4 soon. He tried to catch the driver in front but was unable to do so as he was unfamiliar with the carburetion setting. As the laps went by, it seems that the kart is getting slower and eventually he had to settle for 4th.

Picture courtesy of Mr Bernard Seah

Picture courtesy of Mr Bernard Seah

In Final 2, the track has dried up and everyone changed back to slicks. Jon had a good start and was able to move up two positions. Subsequently, a tussle with three other karts ensued and Jon dropped to 4th position. For the next few laps, Jon was trading 3rd and 4th but eventually broke away. Unfortunately, later part of the race, the same issue that made his kart slowed down happened again. He was losing pace due to carburetion and even though he tried to tune the carburettor but to no avail. Eventually Jon had to settle for 4th, just missing out on the podium.

This is the first time Jon raced the ROK DVS engine and there are still so much that he need to learn, especially on the carburettor tuning while racing.

“The MS Kart was quite good to drive and I didn’t have to adjust much. However, the ROK DVS engine was much harder to set because the carburettor was very erratic which I had to adjust much more than the KF engine,” said Jon, who was rather frustrated throughout the race.

As he prepares for his upcoming mid-year examination, Jon would have to, once again, juggle his time between sports and studies because he will return to the KF1 Circuit a week later to compete in the X30 Challenge 2015 on 2 May.