Bayford Meadows held the second of the three round Kent Kart Championship last weekend, with four classes racing on Saturday and three on Sunday.

On a bright and blustery Saturday Maria Ruberto carried on where she left off at Lydd last month, by topping two of the three Bambino timed runs.

Connor Winfield headed the timing sheets on the second run but Ruberto’s fastest time in the third run proved to be the quickest of the day. Stanley Kearley, Jack Cope and Jack Blackman completed the timing sheets over the three runs.

Junior Subaru.

Unusually for the Junior Subaru class – the top of the field was well spread out over the 13 lap final, Ben Cooke carried on where he left off at the first round by taking a 6.51s win, over Ryan Micallef in 2nd, who’s luck held together this time after a disastrous first round at Lydd.

Finlay Underwood took 3^rd, following on from his 2^nd place in the first round. Another driver who was making up for a troubled Lydd round was Liam Thomas who finished 4^th. Ciaron Edgson was 5^th from Charlie Homewood-Burrows in 6^th.

Junior Club Max.

Oliver Bullion complemented his 1^st round win at Lydd by coming out on top in the Junior Club Max class once again, he will now go into the final round at Buckmore Park as the championship favourite. Jayden Neal-Holder finished 2^nd and along with Callum Romaine in 3^rd , had a much better result than last time out, both drivers scoring well and establishing themselves as genuine front runners in the championship. 

Daniel Hughes scored well again in 4^th to match his consistency in the first round. Kieran Janali impressed in 5^th, his best result in the class so far, Max Lee made up 7 places from a lowly grid slot to finish in 6^th place to keep his championship momentum ongoing.

Honda Cadet.

Owen Neave defeated first round winner Oscar O’Sullivan in the Honda Cadet class, taking fastest lap to in his C.H.D.D. Evolution kart, it is now neck and neck between these two for the championship honours. Lewis Standard was 3^rd from Oliver Majewski 4^th, Kaiser Reimann 5^th and Charlie Warren in 6^th.

Sunday’s racing featured the Honda Rookies, Mini Max and Senior Max classes, with practice and qualifying heading the afternoon’s 2 heat’s and final as on Saturday.

Honda Rookies.

In the first round at Lydd we witnessed a great battle between the RHP kart of Antony Parfett and the JSR machine of Josh Selvadorai, which the latter won after Parfett had led initially.

On Sunday we had more of the same as the duo took wins in the heat and pre final, Parfett took the latter victory leaving him on the pole for the final. Behind these two on the 2^nd row of the grid for the final, were the Project One kart of Tom Ingram-Hill and Oliver Majewski.

From the start of the 13 lap final Parfett led Selvadorai away and the two soon pulled clear of the rest of the 22 kart field to wage another of their season long rivalries.

Behind the scrap for 3^rd place was very entertaining, with lots of place swapping going on, Majewski initially held off Ingram-Hill until they exchanged positions. Fletcher Jamieson was involved too, along with Andrew Dixon and Callum Sims.

As we approached the end of the race Selvadorai made his anticipated move snatching the lead from Parfett around one of the infield hairpins, his tenure at the front didn’t last long however as the RHP kart was soon back in front, slipping ahead at the left hander that leads onto the infield straight, Selvadorai sat alongside Parfett all the way down the length of the straight but had to concede the position into the next corner.

Parfett then held onto the lead over the remainder of the lap to take the win – just 0.19s ahead of Selvadorai in the end. The jostling behind for third place ended with Ingram-Hill taking the position, Dixon was 4^th, Sims 5^th, Issac Doble 6^th after Majewski and Jamieson picked up 5 second nose fairing penalties in 7^th and 8^th.

The Clarke motorsport kart of Riley Till also carrying a penalty finished 9^th with Leon Knight completing the top 10. The fastest lap went the way of Josh Selvadorai.

Mini Club Max.

Mikey Porter proved to be the one to beat after his JAXX motorsport kart won both the heat and pre final, leaving him on pole and favourite for the overall win.

First round victor Jack Badger was receiving help from the C.H.D.D Evolution team for this event and he repaid them by lining up alongside Porter on the front row of the grid. Lloyd Hare showed a competitive turn of speed with 3^rd in the pre final, next to him was Sebastian Morgan on the 2^nd row. An improving Holly Miall was 5^th on the grid in her JAXX kart, she had Damian Baruss-Haggett on the grid next to her.

From the rolling start Porter led with Badger and the rest trying not to let him get away. As they approached the rise at the end of the 2^nd lap the leader made a mistake and looked to be heading for the tyres on the outside of the corner, he somehow held it altogether but dropped back to 4^th behind Badger, Morgan who was up to 2^nd and Hare.

Miall was 5^th ahead of Baruss-Haggett in 6^th. Badger had the chance to break clear now as Porter was recomposing himself before fighting his way back up to the front. In the space of a couple of laps the green & white kart of Porter was pressing Badger for the lead and he took the place back on the 5^th lap.

After that he stroked his way home to victory, a first for the team and a win that sets up an exciting championship finale at Buckmore Park between himself and Badger.

Morgan closed in on Badger over the second half of the race without mounting a serious challenge, but was happy to collect the points for 3^rd. Just less than a second behind the Project One kart of Morgan was Hare taking 4^th, Miall showed well in 5^th, Baruss Haggett in 6^th. Harry Kidd finished 7^th, holding off Simon Parfett and Tighe Wratten in 8^th and 9^th.

Lucas Osman-Price and Matthew Copsey were a little way behind these three in 10^th and 11^th, the latter bemused to find that new tyres had made his kart even slower during the day, a problem that one or two other competitors were confused by. Mikey Porter rounded of his perfect day by recording the fastest lap.

Senior Club Max.

The Senior Club Max class drew an excellent entry of 28 karts, which required the drivers to be split into groups during the 3 qualifying heats. GMS driver Riley Stephenson took two wins with his team mate Joe Gethin showing well by collecting the other.

Last year’s Bayford Meadows champion Jack Bartholomew was desperately unlucky, as he suffered two mechanical failures while running at the front of his two heats, which left him squandering at the back of the B final which was to be held over 9 laps.

It took Bartholomew just 4 laps to find his way to the front of the aforementioned ‘B’ final, after Danny Booth had led the opening laps, he then went on to take a comfortable win, with Booth, Richard Friend and Joseph Perry progressing with him into the A final. Karl Mepham had run 2^nd early on and was content with the 177 class win as he finished 5^th.

For the main final the circuit maximum grid of 24 karts took a couple of attempts to form a clean rolling start as Jonathan Harrison had pulled off and retired at the end of the infield straight.

Once underway Stephenson shot into an immediate lead as the rest squabbled behind him.  G-Tech’s Kieran Ives ran in 2^nd from Gethin and Sean Berry over the opening sequence of the race. Ives’s G-Tech team mate – Zak Dear was impressing in 5^th, having only raced once in the Senior class previously.

Elliot Rice didn’t have the best of starts as he dropped behind Junior Saloon star Charlie Hand, by lap 6 however he was running 5^th in front of Dear. The #87 kart of Stephenson was looking in control of the race as he opened up a comfortable gap, then setting fastest lap of the race as he dominated to take his second consecutive championship win.

Ives and Gethin were having a right old ding dong of a fight over 2^nd and 3^rd place, Gethin’s superior straight-line speed causing his rival all sorts of problems while trying to defend his position, it cumulated when the two young starts collided with just two laps to go, Gethin came out on top of the contretemps and took 2^nd place at the finish, poor Ives found himself back in 5^th at the finish behind Rice who had fought his way up to 3^rd and Berry in 4^th.

Dear took a stellar 6^th behind his team mate Ives. Jono Dalton was next up in 7^th ahead of highest climber Max Goodwin, who had made up 7 places during the race to finish 8^th. Jack Aldis and Joe Wood made up a very competitive top 10. 

The reigning BMKR champion Bartholomew suffered more drama during the final, literally collecting the kart of Richard Friend on the run down to the first hairpin, before recovering back up to 12^th, only to then receive a 5s penalty post-race dropping him down to 15th, I just hope he had a better day the following day when he was celebrating his birthday!

The final round of the championship will be held at Buckmore Park over the weekend of October 24-25^th.The event will be broadcast live as part of the F100 UK series, more information can be found here – https://www.f100uk.co.uk/round-five-race-day-alphalive-feed/

The next Bayford Meadows meeting will be on the weekend before the Buckmore Park event on the  17-18^th October.

The full results from round 2 can be found on the Alpha timing page here – https://results.alphatiming.co.uk/bmkr/