Last weekend Bayford Meadows held round 2 of their 2025 kart championships at the Sittingbourne circuit, held under sunny skies and a chilly winter breeze.

I arrived Sunday morning to hear the paddock gossiping about the earlier eventful and very wet (at times) Australian GP, although most were keen not to know the result until their day’s racing was over! The circuit was certainly a lot drier than Melbourne Park (also without any trackside ducks) as the 70+ competitors hit the tarmac for their early morning qualifying sessions.

Bambinos.

The Bambinos raced on Saturday with 8 drivers taking part this month – Hollie Bonner was there to report on their Final.

‘We had an exciting finish to the Bambino Final, with Jenson Drummond clinching the victory, Lenny Barton finished right on his bumper securing the runners up spot. Santo Amico rounded out the podium in 3rd, Albie Houlihan finished in 4th just missing out on a top-three spot. Cooper Galloway followed in 5th, George Bridger claimed 6th, while William Boswell and Alfie Bi rounded out the standings in 7th & 8th’. Jenson Drummond took the fastest lap at 1:02.08.

Honda Cadet 200.

There were seven drivers this month in the Honda Cadet class who were keen to stop Jack Cope from taking a dominant win, as he did last month. By the time the grid rolled up for their standing start Final, it had been clear that Cope was still in dominant form, having topped qualifying and then taking wins in both the morning Heat and Pre Final leaving him comfortably on pole position for the afternoon’s Final.

Cope’s intentions were clear from the start as his black and red kart rocketed away, soon pulling a gap over the squabbling karts behind him. Leading the pack initially was Jenson Fathers, who was having one of his best days yet in a Cadet kart, he held off George Pickett and Marcus Cooper for 4 laps before the pair eventually found their way past him.

George Lilly and Ollie Spooner-Green raced hard over 5th place with Spooner-Green eventually getting the upper hand. At the finish Cope had kept his head down and within a ‘flash’ had crossed the line 9.49s ahead of the rest.

You couldn’t separate the battling Project One pairing of Pickett & Cooper as they finished in that order after Cooper had looked on course for the runner up spot before Pickett snatched it away from him at the end. Fathers lost touch with the two ahead but was in a safe 4th, from Lilly and Spooner-Green in 5th & 6th.

Fynnley Thompson inherited 7th after Alexander Robertson received a 5s nose fairing penalty post race dropping him to 8th. It was no surprise to see that Cope had taken the fastest lap at 52.31s on lap 4.

Senior Max

There was just over 1 second covering the 21 Senior Max drivers after qualifying, which promised some very close racing throughout the day ahead. Josh Pullen had a below par meeting last month by his high standards with set-up issues affecting his performance, so seeing him at the top of the quali times proved that these had now been rectified, although he was only 0.05s ahead of Rory Burke.

Pullen took the morning Heat win from Joe Gethen and Josh Pattrick, before the former had a nose fairing penalty dropping him to 6th. Finishing ahead of him were Ciaron Edgson and Burke, both keen to improve on these positions.

The Pre Final ominously also went the way of Pullen, followed by Pattrick and Gethen both going well in their GMS karts. Caitlin May had a great run in 4th ahead of Edgson and Burke in 5th & 6th, these drivers filled the first three rows of the grid for the Final. On row 4 sat Matthew Angel and Rueben Mamelok, on row 5 was Felix Dymant and Connor Tubby.

Once the drivers had completed their extra warming up lap due to the cold conditions, the keen drivers blasted away towards turn 1. Pole position at this circuit is always a big advantage, so from the outside Pattrick made a big effort to stay with Pullen through the first right hand corner, he did a great job running side by side with the Project One kart of Pullen down to the bottom hairpin.

The rest of the grid made it safely through the first turn to the relief of all and as they headed back towards us from the bottom hairpin, Pullen had successfully managed to hold off Patrrick, going on to lead over the opening laps. Edgson held 4th initially before finding out that he couldn’t live with the trio ahead, as soon he was struggling with the handling of his kart, dropping behind May after just 3 laps. Burke, Mamelok, Tubby, Angel and Dymant ran from 6th – 10th, as Alexander Campbell & Emma Stoner started to slip away from 11th &12th after 4 laps.

The leading trio circulated as one for most of the race with Pullen unable to break clear of teammates Pattrick & Gethen as they headed into the 12th and final lap. Through the first few corners the leader defended well leaving the infield as the only real chance for the GMS pairing to mount an attack. Pattrick saw a gap at the first infield left handed corner and went for a dive down the inside, only then to run out of space as the leader turned in, although there was minimal contact it was enough to slow Pattrick allowing Gethen to snatch 2nd place holding it to the finish.

There was a 0.31s gap between the delighted winner Pullen and the GMS pairing of Gethen & Pattrick in 2nd & 3rd after a very tense final lap. May finished 4th for Blueberry, from her teammate Burke in 5th. The LN kart of Edgson slipped to 6th at the finish, leaving himself some work to do before the next round. Angel took a good 7th from Dymant in 8th, a penalised Tubby in 9th and Mollie Griffiths in 10th after Arrow Suarez was penalised dropping to 12th behind a very happy in pink and top privateer Hollie Bonner in 11th. Josh Pattrick’s 4th lap at 45.19s proved to be the fastest of the race.

Junior Max Rookies.

The Junior Rookies were up next and as with last month there was one driver missing due to an arm injury sustained in the Pre Final, which put Harrison Matthews out for the day and left him hoping he will be back fit enough for round 3, this left us with 18 karts for the afternoon’s Final. Jacob Smith continued his recent good form by lining up on pole with Oliver Peters sharing the front row.

Bailey Doughty and Jacob Jarman were next on row 2 from Finlay Strang and Paras Tahmasvand on row 3. On row 4 were Rhys Rutland and Daniel Thomson, behind them sat Brandon Swanwick and Ricardo Rodrigues on row 5.

From the start the top 3 held their positions with Strang jumping ahead of Jarman for 4th and 5th. Smith & Peters then pulled clear of Doughty who was under big pressure from Strang with the two swapping places before Doughty slipped further back on lap 4.

Strang in 3rd was under increasing pressure from Jarman as the race progressed and then on lap 8 the two tangled at the infield left hand hairpin, with Strang left sitting on top of Jarman, worryingly one of his rear wheels had been spinning on the trapped Jarman’s lower left leg. The clerk of the course had no option but to throw the red flag while medical attention was given to Jarman.

The results were declared at the end of the 8th lap with Smith taking the win from Peters in 2nd, Doughty 3rd, Rutland in 4th and Thomson in 5th. The top 10 positions were completed by Tahmasvand 6th, Swanwick 7th, Aston Tabb 8th, Eden Salvidge 9th and Rodrigues in 10th. BM plate holder Salvidge finished an eventful penalty filled day with the fastest lap at 46.61s.

Rotax Inter.

Sadly only 4 karts were entered in the Rotax Inter class, possibly due to clashes elsewhere over the weekend. The quartet however put on a great show with a nail biting Final going to Harry Wright after he had passed early leader Jenson Floyde-Oram, then managing to hold off some intense pressure from the Clark Motorsport run driver over the 2nd half of the race. Floyde-Oram had proven quickest in qualifying and won both the Heat and Pre Final from Wright, George Wightman and Jacob Daujotas.

Wright’s victory margin was just 0.23s from Floyde-Oram, Daujotas held 3rd in the early laps until he was black flagged after losing his chain guard during an early clash with Wightman, the latter finishing 3.14s back from the two leaders after 11 laps of racing. The fastest lap of the race went to Floyde-Oram at 48.29s.

Senior Max 177/Masters.

Finley Cross carried on from where he left off last month by taking a comfortable win in the Senior 177 class, having made the most of his partnership with the GMS CKR kart winning by 2.32s and taking the fastest lap at 47.45s along the way.

Lewis Deacon had looked to be the closest rival to Cross but was thwarted by loss of a rear wheel which had put him in the tyre wall early on. Jaydon Miles overcame a fast starting Reece Anscombe to take a fine 2nd place eventually pulling away to head Anscombe by nearly 2s.

Dennis Trzeciak took 4th and finished at the top of the Masters category, Jason Mills took 5th after a half spin dropped him behind Trzeciak towards the end of the race.

Vito Dacres ran a comfortable 4th for much of the race until he was out with a loose rear bumper on the closing lap. As at round 1, Mark Goodwin held off David Ives throughout the race the pair finished 2nd & 3rd in the Masters group.

Junior Max.

The last race of the day was for the Junior Max class, with 12 drivers entered this month. Qualifying, Heat & Pre Final were won by Jack Pullen who was driving beautifully in his Project One kart. Kieron Hammond had a great Pre Final taking his Roalf run kart to 2nd place, his best performance to date in either of the Junior categories.

Privateer Ayda Sexton had been delayed in the Pre Final before fighting back to 3rd, she was hoping that her inside grid slot would help for the start of the Final. 4th in the Pre final and completing the 2nd row of the Final grid was Daniel Butcher in his C.H.D.D run kart, on the 3rd row was Birthday boy Dexter Collins and Project One’s Fletcher Growns.

Freddie Wall, running out of the Roalf racing awning, sat on the 4th row with Blueberry’s Freddie Leppenwell. Starting on the 5th row were the GMS karts of Louis Bishop and Jasmine Keepax.

The initial start was aborted as Butcher had blasted away from the 2nd row to lead into turn 1, unfortunately proving to be a bit too keen for the starter, at the second attempt Pullen, Hammond and Butcher ran three wide into turn 1, before the inside drivers of Pullen and Sexton worked together to come out in front down the back straight. These two then pulled clear as the rest held themselves up behind.

Hammond had lost out to fast starting Collins over the opening lap but grabbed it back at the bottom hairpin going into the 2nd lap, only then to be helped wide into the first infield hairpin as the black GMS kart of Collins saw a gap appear.

Butcher and Wall watched on as the fight ahead raged over the subsequent few laps. At half distance both Pullen and Sexton had disappeared up the road, the gap between the two steadily expanding. Behind Butcher was becoming frustrated at being stuck behind the Collins/Hammond battle ahead of him, with the latter unable to usurp Collins, on lap 6 Butcher passed Hammond, but before he had the chance to attack Collins – Hammond was back in front, Butcher wasn’t having any of that and immediately retaliated at the bottom hairpin the two attempting to run side by side before they ran out of road and the inevitable locking of wheels happened, spoiling both driver’s races – Butcher’s radiator damaged and Hammond now at the back of the pack.

 The race ended with Pullen making it a sibling double win for the Pullen family, after brother Josh’s earlier Senior class victory. Sexton finished 3.38s behind in 2nd, happy to be away from the squabbling going on behind and scoring good points. Collins celebrated his Birthday with the final podium spot, his best in the class at Bayford Meadows so far.

Wall gave himself a boost and made his sponsors proud with 4th place, ahead of Bishop in 5th and Growns in 6th. Keepax also gave herself a big boost with a solid 7th, Leon Knight was up to 8th from 12th and Alex Shepherd finished 9th from Leppenwell in 10th. Pullen went slightly one better on the day than his elder sibling Josh, by taking the race’s fastest lap (46.28s) in the Final, which left me wondering if he mentioned that to Josh later in the team awning ?

The full results from the day can be found on the Alpha timing page here – https://results.alphatiming.co.uk/bmkr/e/264048

Round 3 of the BMKR 2025 championship will be held over the Easter weekend April 19 – 20th.