Today we catch-up with Charlie Monk to see how the current situation has affected life and his plans on returning to racing.

Giving his thoughts on the current situation and his love sport that started at a young age. Since March a lot of people have been stuck indoors due to the current situation, however for myself that’s not been the case!

Thankfully my place of work has stayed open with restrictions in place, allowing us to continue the development of Associated British Motorcycles GP2 bike.

The one thing which has changed for me is the lack of racing and this has given me time to reflect on some of my achievements over the years. Thanks to Chris and Kent Sports News, I have managed to share some of these stories with everyone.

I was born in Medway and have lived there for most of my life. My family are all into various types of sport, so it was inevitable that I would find myself working in a sports industry 35 years later.

From a young age I was a big fan of football. My Dad would take me to watch Crystal Palace whilst my Mum would take me to my Sunday football matches. My first team was Strood 87 and this was a group of lads who had grown up together through infant and junior school.

We had some great times and there is a few of us who still speak now! After leaving Strood I then moved onto a few different clubs including Black Lion and Snodland nomads.

By now I was reaching the end of my time in school and along with two of my closest friends, Luke and Steve, I found myself getting more interested in motorsport.

Fast forward a few years and I’m lucky enough to meet the legendary Dave Carnell (D&M Motorsport and HM Racing). Dave really helped me in the early years and introduced me to motorcycle engineering. Around 2004 I left motorsport, before returning in 2009.

I began helping around the motorcycle paddock with various riders at club level such as Chris Camps, Phil Polden and Steve Murphy including one of my friends from school, Steve Hogben! From here, I was able to step up into the British Superbike Paddock working with Local riders such as Ryan Dixon and Daniel Brookes.

There was also a brief move to Swansea to study motorcycle engineering. Over the years there were many highs and lows, with the greatest achievement coming in 2018. Whilst working with KT Motorsport as a race engineer, I managed to become ACU national endurance champion.

It was at this point I had decided to try my hand at four wheeled motorsport and stepped into a kart. I felt my time had ended within the bike racing paddocks and a new challenge was needed.

Since 2018 I’ve been lucky enough to have had a chance at racing in some fantastic events including the Buckmore Park 24Hour Endurance race and the first ever Karting Race of Champions.

Before the lockdown we had started the season quite well with a podium at one of the opening Club 73 Karting rounds, along with a decent showing in our first outing in the Club 100 Endurance series after teaming up with G-Force Racing.

Obviously, the current situation has affected Motorsport in a big way but its nice to see plans are under way to for a restart with reduced calendars. It will be interesting to see how things move forward over the next few weeks, but we have already planned our return to racing.

Due to the heavily reduced calendars, we will only be competing in the Club 73 events for this season along with the Buckmore 24Hour and 2020 KROC event. These are currently running behind closed doors, so hopefully before these events take place, we will be allowed to have some spectators!!

There are so many people to thank for helping me achieve the things I have over the years and helped me get to where I am today. From the bottom of my heart, Thank you all!! For my boy, Harley.