The penultimate round of the BPKC summer championships took place on Sunday at the picturesque woodland circuit that lies next to the M2 near Chatham.

For this month the Honda Cadet podium winners were to be awarded the prestigious ‘H’ trophies, in honour of circuit owner John Surtees late son Henry, who was tragically killed in a race car accident in 2009. Likewise the winning Rotax senior driver had the chance to have their name engraved on the Phil Whorlow memorial shield, an annual award presented by the club.

Under mild dry and blustery conditions the first final of the day was for the Honda Clubman competitors. One team dominated the podium positions with Ambition racing drivers, Sebastian Bloch, Anthony Amato and Matthew Hyde filling the top three spots.

It had a been a fine display of team driving, with each driving respecting each other perfectly, this gave them a good breather over the rest of the field. One man who could have upset the Ambition twelve wheeler was Herne Bay’s Callum Gunning, he set the fastest lap in his climb up from a lower than usual grid slot, to finish 4^th. Jamie Perilly had a fine drive to 5^th from Chatham’s KPi team mate Joshua Wellard, another man who is used to being at the front was Alex Moody who was having an off day in 7^th place.

The Mini Max class were up next and supplied us with a thrilling finish to the 12lap race. Klaas Kooiker led every lap but one comfortably, that one lap was the last as Patrick Kibble stealth fully sneaked up and pounced to take the win, leaving Klaas with no time to retaliate, it was a fine and opportunist move by Kibble.

Kooiker’s Tooley team mate Kieron Jeremy sped through into third place from Ronnie Foster in fourth; Oliver Appleby had held that spot until he spun back to 8^th place, he did recover however well enough to lead his KPi team mate Josh King over the line in 5^th and 6^th.

The race for the ‘H’ trophies was up next and this provided even more last ditch thrills than the previous final. Oliver Bearman grabbed the lead from Oliver Marsh on the first lap and then led every lap in style, holding a slight advantage over the colourful chasing pack of hungry youngsters. Leading the attack going into the last lap of the race was Ben Fayers, along with Zach Ripley, Dylan Cooper and Alfie Prince.

Bearman chose to defend covering the inside line into turn 1 and then the first hairpin, behind him a domino concertina effect, would have dire consequences on his chance of taking home one of the coveted H trophies, as he was pushed wide from the inertia created by the contact on his rear bumper, his chance had gone.

After they had sorted themselves out over that final frantic lap it was Fayers who held on to take a very satisfying win, leading over the line a train of karts glued to his number 6 rear plate, Dylan Cooper found himself in a superb 2^nd place, from Alfie Prince in 3rd, Walderslade’s Zach Ripley just missed out on a ‘H’ trophy, but was still ecstatic with 4^th  and the race’s fastest lap, Oliver Marsh took 5^th from Khali Atkins in 6^th. Erstwhile leader Bearman ended up 8^th behind a down on power Sam Heading.

The Juniors followed the previous epic encounter with a more subdued but suitably tense final. Tooley’s Tyler Sullivan had done everything that had been asked of him in the qualifying races and repeated that with a fine start to lead his arch rival Charlie Bennett away from pole position. He then pulled out a comfortable advantage over the Kent champion until the last couple of laps, when Bennett set the fastest lap and latched onto the Canvey Island flyer’s rear bumper.

It looked as though the move would come at the second hairpin but Sullivan had it covered well and held on to take a much needed win for the personable Essex lad. His nemesis seemed to be happy with second this time around, we now wait with bated breaths for their next encounter.

Myles Apps from Dartford was comfortable in third place, 2.7 seconds behind the jostling pair up ahead, Emily Rogers came back well from a nasty qualifying heat crash to take an excellent 4^th from Maidstone’s Liam Carter and Michael Smith in 6^th . Rupert Flynn from Tunbridge Wells was the sole X30 driver for this month.

We were left with a mouth-watering final race for the Phil Whorlow memorial shield for the the Senior Rotax and X30 karts. Last year’s winner Kit Brough was sadly out of contention almost immediately with a mysterious engine fault, he missed out on breath taking four way dice between regular race winner Elliot Rice, BRDC Formula 4 star-Jack Bartholomew, fresh up from the junior class-Jordan Brown-Nutley and Sevenoaks’ Sam Baker.

This quartet swapped places throughout with never much more than a second blanketing them, it was karting at its best. For the last 5 laps Rice defended supremely with Bartholomew and Brown-Nutley trying to find a way through his tight defence.

At the end of the 12 laps it was Rice that held on to take the flag, adding his name to the memorial shield, car racer Bartholomew adapted well back to karts to finish 2^nd from the hard charging Brown-Nutley and Sam Baker close by in 4^th, less than a second covered these four at the finish line. Kent champion Jonathan Wilkes took 5^th from Ryan Haines in 6^th.

Karl Mepham was a delighted 177 class winner and Maidstone’s Chris Bridle drove well to win the X30 class from his brother Edward. Ambition racing’s team mate to the Bridle twins – Ben Steward, was desperately unlucky to have his chain snap on the warming up lap, this after showing an excellent turn of speed in the qualifying races.

The next Buckmore Park Kart Club event is on December 20^th, with spectators more than welcome.