On 31st March, four of Criterion's wannabe racing drivers, and a celebrity racing driver, went head to head with other teams from across the UK to battle it out for bragging rights, and of course raise money and awareness for The Brain Tumour Charity.

We all set off to Whilton Mill kart circuit nice and early but got caught in a snow storm on the way there, this was to set the tone for the rest of the day! The day of all weathers was about to make our day a little bit harder, more eventful but a lot more fun than any of us had anticipated.

The weather had cleared by the time we arrived at the circuit, the sun was shining but it was still cold and windy. We were welcomed to the event by the team at Motormouth and heard from the charities that were involved before we were assigned our celebrity driver. There were some professional racing drivers, some youtubers and influencers in the mix. Our driver was a seasoned kart racer and advocate for MotorsportWoman, Stephanie Lutteridge. She has done countless laps around Whilton Mill over the years which was to bode well for our team.

A 45 minute combined practice and qualifying was our first introduction to the circuit and as it was dry and the track was in good condition we decided to put our faster drivers and Stephanie out in the kart first to get a fast qualifying time in just incase the weather decided to turn on us. Bryn went out first and we were quickly into the top 5 and as the times started to get faster Stephanie kept us in 5th position. Liam was out next to get himself up to speed with the circuit whilst it was still dry, then things got a little bit crazy. In came the rain and the snow and poor Matt was subjected to a wall of snow for his time in the kart, unable to see with a covering of snow on his visor he pitted and handed over to Gavin to round out our practice and qualifying session on what was now a wet circuit. All seasons in one 45min session!

Our plan for the race was to bookend the race with our faster drivers so Bryn would go first to start the race up against most of the pro racing drivers and Stephanie would bring us home at the end with Liam, Matt and Gavin doing the middle stints.

Just as the grids were being arranged a few spots of rain appeared on the drivers visors, this didn’t bode well. Bryn lined up 5th on the grid with the likes of Steve ‘SuperGT’ Brown and pro driver Gordie Mutch in front of him. After a chaotic start on a wet track with everyone scrabbling around trying to find grip Bryn found himself up into 4th halfway around lap one only to be tapped into a spin on the back straight which plummeted the team down to 16th by the end of the lap. Not the start we wanted. The rain turned to snow and after a few laps the circuit was completely white. The race was stopped!

Ten minutes later the skies were blue again and we went back to racing, this time Bryn was restarting in 11th place. Battling with the grip on a wet track Bryn was able to gain a few more positions to 9th by the end of his stint and handed over to Liam on what was now a slowly drying track. Liam put in a solid stint with his lap times improving as the track was drying and we were hovering around towards the tail end of the top10, a solid performance. Matt was up next on an almost dry track by now another solid performance kept us around the top10 which given the carnage at the start was a good place to be. At the end of Matts stint we had to pull in and do a stop for fuel which cost us some time due to a queue at the refuelling rig, this will be something we’ll get better at next time. Gav was up next on what was by now a sunny and dry track with an hour of the race left to run. We had dropped a few positions at this point due to the refuelling time lost which meant that we were now in the mid pack, around 14th position which left Stephanie with some work to do in her last 30mins. 

The team had joked with Stephanie that the weather was due for another change as she prepared herself for her stint and sure enough just one lap into her time in the kart it started to spit with rain. Then it snowed, again! The track turned into an ice rink once more with karts spinning off all over the place. Stephanie kept a cool head and charged back to an eventual 13th place finish. All in all a pretty respectable result given the carnage that ensued at the start.

It's fair to say that we all thoroughly enjoyed the day, a well organised event for an amazing cause with some fantastic teams and their celebrity drivers. We’re proud to say that the Criterion Games team also managed to raise almost £500 for The Brain Tumour charity too. A fantastic day!

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