A bitterly cold and damp Buckmore Park welcomed a full paddock full of some of the UKs top young kart drivers for round 1 of the winter series on Sunday 18th January.
Many of them in their new for 2015 machines. The first final of the day was for the Junior Max class, a big field of karts which was boosted by the Super One championship visit later this year and a handful of Junior X30 drivers joining in.
Previously dominant at Buckmore Park, Jack McCarthy couldn’t stay with his Strawberry team mate Dean MacDonald and BPKC summer Mini Max champ Charlie Bennett this time, he finished third behind these two with MacDonald taking a comfortable win. Alfie Brown in the leading Junior X30 kart proved faster than all the Junior Max drivers to win his class.
The IAME 2stroke Cadets had a larger than usual grid and put on a good show. Glasgow’s Dextor Patterson looked to be the one to beat and indeed held on skilfully to take a very close win from Giorgi Dimitrov, who was a scant 0.070 sec behind at the finish, Bray Kenneally finished third.
The Honda Clubman cadet class was dominated by one man, young Sam Heading carried on from where he finished off last month winning by a colossal eight seconds, and this helped to ease the worry for his father, who had the battery of his motorhome go flat during the day, due to watching too much TV! Behind Sam and the second placed Anthony Amato, was some confusion when two of the youngsters had a disagreement in Parc Ferme, their contretemps led them to visit the judge’s office and later exclusion, and Jack Davis inherited the final podium slot.
The Mini Max final witnessed a master class from Maidstone’s Kiern Jewiss who was back to his Buckmore Park winning ways, even after a sluggish start which saw him drop behind Mark Kimber and Chris Lulham. His new Strawberry Tony Kart suited him well although Mark Kimber from Dan Holland Racing, kept the gap to just 0.780 seconds at the flag. RL racing’s Lulham took the final podium slot.
The Senior Max class suffered from a depleted grid for their first winter round. Regular Buckmore favourites Kit Brough and Tom Prior took on the visiting drivers, the fastest of these being Matt Hirst from KR Sport and RL racing’s Jac Constable. At the conclusion of the final it was Constable who took the win, celebrating in style with some exuberant drifts along the finishing straight! Hirst got into a tangle with Prior fighting over second and had to retire, Prior however closed in on Constable at the flag but it wasn’t enough. Brough lost a lot of his early pace to finish fourth behind another visitor Brett Ward.
The final class to be decided was the Honda Cadets. This featured a great dice between a group of drivers throughout the 12 lap race. A last lap tangle between Harry Thompson and Dragan Pinsent left a delighted Project One driver Ben Fayers the winner, from recent podium regular Ollie Marsh. The squabbling pair of Pinsett and Thompson recovered to finish in that order close behind.
The next round of the BPKC Winter series is on the 15th February, public are very welcome to visit.