The BPKC opened its summer championship on Sunday along with the second round of the Kent Cup, the anticipated action didn’t disappoint.

Opening the day’s finals was the always exciting Honda cadets. Nicolas Reeve had planted his kart on pole for the final with Luke Whitehead alongside, once the race was under way the Kent Cup round one winner, Harrison Blake joined these two at the front and after a few laps moved through to the lead from Reeve.

A game of cat and mouse prevailed with Whitehead eventually moving past Nicholas and onto Harrison’s bumper; Reeve then fell away gradually from this pair, leaving the battle between Blake and Whitehead to come down to the last lap. The attempted move from Luke happened out of my sight, but an audible shout that went up from the Grandstand which had seemingly signalled a change.

However when the leaders came back into view it was Blake who had held on to take victory, last month’s Buckmore winner Whitehead was very close behind with Reeve taking the last podium spot, Louie Short found himself in fourth at the end after an impressive climb up through the field, Alfie Glenie took fifth from Owen Tolley and Sam Heading after a great scrap involving a long line of karts.

In the Junior Rotax final it was once again Charlie’s day, Charlie Bennett had started as he finished off round 1 of the Kent Cup by winning from pole position, not too far behind him were Liam Carter (fastest lap) and Charlie Lamb, Emily Rogers took a fine fourth for the KPi team ahead of Michael Smith and Lewis Ridd. A handful of Junior X30 karts joined the grid with James Taylor winning from Susanne Gutzold.

The IAME final ended with drama as the battle that had raged between Rashan Chigorimbo and Dylan Hotchin ending in contact on the exit of the second hairpin on the last lap. The two of them somehow managed to tangle on the straight with Dylan’s kart spinning Rashan’s broadside in front of him, eventually the latter ended up travelling backwards down the short straight until Samuel Shaw who had set the fastest lap, collided heavily with him. Shaw was shaken up in the incident but thankfully okay soon after.

All of this left Hotchin to take a comfortable win from Lorcan Hanafin who had moved up eight places into second, Matthew Hunt took third form Harry Pears, Charlie Typaldo-Cole and Jack Page in sixth.

A trio of blue Ambition racing karts filled the front of the Honda Clubman final and they led away from the start, with Sebastian Bloch ahead of Joshua Wellard and Anthony Amato.

After several laps Bloch found himself back in third with Wellard slipping further behind in fourth, Amato had grabbed the lead and last month’s convincing Kent Cup winner and novice, Oliver Greenall who found himself in second place. However come mid race Bloch found his mojo and reeled in Amato for the lead, Evolution’s Greenall couldn’t live with this pair and slipped back a little in third.

On the last lap Sebastian pounced on Anthony relieving him of first place and the win, these two had put on a fine show as team mates, Oliver finished in third no doubt learning from the two ahead, behind him Alex Moody made up for a bad qualifying finishing fourth from Ronnie Mansfield and Josh Wellard who would have been mystified with losing contact with his two duelling team mates.

After watching the excellent display by the young Clubman drivers the Senior Rotax competitors disappointed with several making contact at the first corner from the standing start, not for the first time this year.

This split the field up with several fast drivers fighting their way back up although Kit Brough had to retire after damaging his new kart. After a few laps Charlie Turner fought his way through into the lead with circuit regular and favourite Elliot Rice shadowing his every move. Much like the young Honda Cadet pairs earlier, these two waited until the final lap to resolve their chess match.

Turner eventually crossed the line first but it was Rice who had called check mate and took the victory once the results had been declared, I was unaware of the reasons for any penalties at the events end but Turner had slipped off of the leader board. Taylor Harding inherited the second spot from pole man Lewis Brown after a good dice; these were followed home by Shaun Hollingsworth and ex Le Mans 24 hour class winner Richard Dean, who is taking a break from GT racing, Luke Beeson finished sixth. In the 177 class Mark Figes won from Sean Tueten and United Autosports’ Zac Brown.

The Junior Subarus were next up and was won by Kent Cup round 1 winner Max Goodwin who fought his way up from a grid four slot, it was Dillan Hendry-Lewis that had held the lead until the dying moments of the race, he took second from Larbi Belkhit in third. Jenson Harvey snatched fourth from pole man Warwick Daden at the finish, Nathan Jeffery rounded out the top six.

It was quality over quantity for the last race of the day – the Mini Max class. Evolution driver Ronnie Foster took the fight to the KPi pairing of Kent Cup round 1 winner, Oliver Appleby and Josh King. Foster took the lead on the fourth lap where he held off the blue karts for four laps before slipping to third, although a resurgence form the man in yellow placed him second at the finish from Josh King, these three were separated by a whisker all race and it was credit to them that their karts looked as immaculate as they had started after all the place changing.

A good fight between Freddy Simpson-Stacey and Sean Berry was settled in the former’s favour, Patrick Kibble and Conner Garlick were a few seconds back but running close together on track in sixth and seventh.

And so ended a great days racing at a circuit that had just been celebrating the announcement of the new ownership by double World Champion John Surtees OBE.