How to get the most out of a Club100 sprint weekend
All photos courtesy of John Patterson @JohnnyP5000 on Instagram
Club100 is the fastest ‘arrive and drive’ karting series in the UK. It’s called Club 100 because they used to race 100cc 2-stroke TKM engines. However, now Club100 karting is synonymous with Rotax: 125cc water-cooled 2-stroke engines. These engines are easier to look after than TKMs and come with an electric starter, which makes life a lot easier for drivers and marshals alike if you spin off.
Club100 offers both Sprint and Endurance-style racing. Here’s what you need to know for the sprints.
Club100 sprint race format
The format here is 3x 7 min heats followed by 12 min finals. There are three finals, A, B, C, with C being the lowest. If you do have a mare in the heats and end up in a final below your pay grade, there is a chance for redemption: The top 4 in the C final join the back of the B final, and the top 2 in the B final join the back of the A final. In wet conditions, I have seen one driver make his way to the A final all the way from the back of the C final. Impressive.
Here’s the rub - the only warm up you get is 4 mins at the beginning of your first heat. Which leads us to…
Club100 practice sessions
Practice sessions cost extra, but if you can afford them, they’re essential. If you know the track in question, they’re handy to get your eye in and understand how the karts are handling. If you don’t know the track, you’ll need to get familiar - which is one of the reasons why we started this website. There are several ways to practice on race weekend.
Karting practice on the morning of…
Club 100 offer 1 practice session of 30 mins on the day of your race, after the drivers briefing, but before the first heat. These sessions are the best in my opinion as you don’t need to travel twice to the venue, and you’re most likely to experience the same weather conditions as on race day. However, these spots are limited - so get ‘em while they’re hot.
Karting practice on Fridays and Saturdays…
For most weekends, they’ll usually be a 60 min practice on the Friday and a 30 min practice on the Saturday. This great if you need to the learn the track, but you might experience different weather conditions from race day. In this track guide at Clay Pigeon, I experienced torrential rain - but it was dry on race day.
Phone a friend and share a session
To reduce costs, it’s possible to share practise sessions, which can be done via the Club100 facebook group.
Watch Karting Track Guides before you race
As you may know, this website is all about helping drivers learn kart circuits before they arrive, through high quality video footage. While there are lots of karting videos on YouTube, often the footage is shaky, windy, or not useful. (For example, I find it very useful when you can see the driver’s feet on the pedals for accelerating and breaking.)
Head to the Club100 section of the website to watch all our current track guides, or if you would like to upload a track guide, here’s where to go. Rich Tea Racing also has a great blog on how to learn a track for the first time.
Lap times and live footage with Alpha Timing
I hadn’t raced for 20 years and I was excited to learn that karting now has live telemetry that’s up there with Formula 1, thanks too Alpha Timing. For each event you can watch the lap times live, see race results minutes after the race conclusion and at some events, even watch a race live on youtube.
On race day, it’s handy to have 2 tabs open on your phone, the live times and race results. Lap times are great to see if you are on the pace, or where there’s still time to be found.
Table and chairs
Sprint weekends have a REALLY fast turn over. Before the last heat is off the track, the next heat will be forming up behind the pace kart. That said, there can be some downtime, if for example you are in heats 1, 8, and 12. For these times, it’s handy to have a little base, with a camping chair, a bag or box for your kit and maybe even an umbrella.
