Football, Medals, Karting, Trophies and Paramedics!

Weekends are always busy in our household and the last one was no exception!  Jacob played in a rescheduled football tournament that was postponed at the end of March when we had a lot of snow.  He plays for Junior Gardener Whites Under 7 team and he is the goalie. 

He started the season in defense but wanted a go at being a goalie and despite a rocky start he's really flourished and does quite a decent job!  They played 6 matches and won 2, lost 2 and drew 2.  Jacob actually kept a clean sheet in one of the matches and saved all the goal attempts!

Here he is post match with his medal for taking part! 

Now onto Sunday!  Samuel was testing a new engine all day Saturday but it was not for working so we were lent an engine so he could take part in the first IKR (Independent Kart Racing) Championship at the 3 Sisters race track in Wigan.  He qualified 9th (11 racers in total but 3 different engine categories) and then moved up to 7th place after heat one.

From where we stand as spectators, we can't see the start / finish line so we didn't know what had quite happened at the start of heat 2 until the red flags (race stopped) were waved and Samuel didn't reappear.  The short video below is onboard footage from the grid start and the tangle Samuel got caught up in (watch kart 6)

All this happens at around 50mph and Samuel usually manages to avoid spins and crashes that happen in front of him but this time he didn't as kart number 6 spun into the side of him and took him clean out.  Normally the driver gets out of their kart and stands in a safe spot by the tyre wall.  But Samuel was not anticipating the contact and was rather winded by the crash (plus his sidepod was punctured by kart 6 - it looks like a bullet hole!) so the paramedics who are on standby drove onto the track (lights flashing!)in the ambulance and took Samuel off to be treated.

He was totally fine - more winded than anything but at least his rib protector worked!  We had to get him declared fit to race for the final by the paramedics (who were fantastic!) Because he didn't finish heat 2 he started 9th on the grid but by this time it was raining quite hard and Samuel is rather good in the wet! It was an 8 lap race due to the rain and he managed to finish 5th overall and 2nd in the Honda Class! So he got a trophy!!

So here he is with trophy number 15 in just 16 months of karting at Cadet level!

And in case you are wondering, he is wearing a wetsuit over his normal race suit - but at least we can spot him on track with the bright yellow markings!

So it all ended well and he was fine for school on Monday!