Wih the racing season for 2009 over, Cup 1 entered a team to compete in the Hydraquip event held annually at Buckmore Park for the Mercury FM radio station charity.

The Cup 1 team contained a formiddable line up of drivers and were confident of victory, with Gary Duckman as main driver and team manager, Clifford Lowe, owner of Project Nine Engineering, Chris Silver, Senior Technician for Brooklands along with Peter, Dave and Keith, all seasoned karters, so the team was looking good.

As the event was for charity, qualifying was down to who put the most money up, and it appeared the Cup 1 donation was a little lower than most as the team manged a terrible 16th out of 22!

Cliff started the race from 16th and made a blistering run, going from 16th to 6th in 1 lap! - he then proceeded to catch and pass the guys in 5th and 4th at the changeover.

As everybody settled into the 3 hour race, the standings slowly progressed until Cup 1 were in the lead by over a lap at the midway point. It was now the turn of Cliff again, the driver that had made the places at the start. A few minutes into Cliffs session, a car in front of him spun out on the fastest part of the track and Cliff had to spin his kart to avoid a big crash. This spin sent Cliff backwards into the tyres though, breaking the exhuast off the kart and forcing an unscheduled pitstop. To make matters worse, the marshalls blamed Cliff for the incident and docked the team 2 laps! - very unfair.

So with just over an hour to go, the team were now in 4th place, but fighting hard. This continued, going first to 3rd and then eventually to 2nd place, finally running out of time trying to catch the team in 1st, but crossing the line only 35 seconds behind them, so without the mid race issue a win by 3 laps would have been easy.

All in all a great day, with a lot of money raised for charity and some excellent post season racing, but as racing drivers, 2nd place is not the aim, made even worse by the unfair marshall decision.

Look out for next years event where Cup 1 will win for sure!