There were thrills and spills as the youngsters entertained at a sunny Bayford Meadows last weekend.
Report by Paul Babington.
Race day brought some glorious weather for the first half of the event with later cloud threatening rain for the finals at the Sittingbourne circuit based in the Eurolink Industrial Estate, just ten minutes from Junction five of the M2.
The first of these was a 13 lap affair for the Honda Cadets. Sam Heading (Evolution) was on top form and fully recovered from his nasty crash at Buckmore Park last week. He had won his first cadet race in the first pre-final during the morning and carried that form into the final.
In the early stages he had to fend off a serious challenge from Ambition racing’s Owen Tolley, who drew alongside several times, himself holding off a long train of eager drivers. Previous form man Harrison Blake (Project One) had fought his way up from a back grid slot in pre-final one to challenge Tolley on the 10th lap, but this delayed both of them when hefty contact was made.
This gave Heading a valuable gift of a gap over his followers, with which he grasped with both hands taking a brilliant win in style. Behind Blake had recovered to finish in second place, Alfie Prince took a fine podium spot in third from the very sore Tolley, who amazed his father and team by driving through a lot of discomfort to finish after the clash with Blake. Rubens Stanislaus and Zac Ripley were in the mix throughout and finished fifth and sixth.
The second final featured another win for the Evolution team with Ronnie Foster dominating. The pre-finals had given us close racing at the front, setting us up for an exciting final but behind the dominant Foster the challenge fell apart.
Previous Kent Cup winner Oliver Appleby was driving a wounded kart and could not live with those at the front, he eventually finished fifth. It was Patrick Kibble who took the second spot some 6.4 seconds behind Foster, he was pushed hard by Appleby’s team mate Josh King in third with Freddy Simpson-Stacey in fourth, Thomas Rotherham took sixth.
The Junior Subarus were up next and taking wins apiece in the pre-finals were Jenson Harvey and Max Goodwin, these two again starred in the final never apart for the full race distance.
At the finish line both were waving their arms, Harvey in delight after snatching the win by a mere 0.2 sec, Goodwin’s arm signals were those of a despondent runner up, desperately disappointed in losing the win. Behind these two, the equally matched Subaru engine karts entertained as they always seem to do, with Nathan Jeffrey and Thomas Lawson pairing off in third and fourth from the pairing of Zac Spence and Christopher Bridle fifth & sixth.
The Senior Rotax class final was settled at the hairpin on the first lap when Tom Skinner who had driven with speed and maturity in the pre-finals taking a fine first & second, tangled with Jonathan Wilkes, both of their chances of victory were shot in one go.
Chris Thomas debuting his new kart must have been rubbing his hands in glee along with Shaun Hollingsworth, when the two in front tangled. These two finished first and second, Hollingsworth later told me that his kart’s chassis had completed the race with a bad crack, so he was lucky to finish at all. Luke Beeson took a fine third place from Nick Pacman, the recovering Skinner and Paul Stanley. Wilkes ended up just outside the top ten in 11th spot.
Luke Wooder was untouchable in the Junior Rotax class, he won at a canter from a good battle behind featuring Liam Carter, Harry Gent, Charlie Bennett and Emily Rogers. They finished in that order with Ben Rawlinson in sixth.
The Honda Clubman class rounded the day off and such has been the way recently Anthony Amato took the honours. Anthony has inherited his father’s competitive sporting genes (Phillip Amato was a former footballer and Formula Libre race car driver), he didn’t have it easy though as there were five karts pushing him all the way.
His team mate Seb Bloch was a scant 0.077 sec behind with Alex Moody, Ollie Greenall, Callum Gunning and Matt Hyde following in a blanket finish. A special mention must go to Ollie Greenall who was another who was feeling sore after a nasty incident that shouldn’t have happened at all. He ended up with Alex Moody’s kart sitting on top of him on the lap after the chequered flag ‘should’ have been waved; the start line marshal had erroneously half raised the wrong flag and did not have the time to rectify his mistake!
In between all the finals the young Bambino drivers completed their individual timed laps, with Luke Haywood proving to be the fastest on his little set of wheels.
So it’s on to Buckmore Park for the next round of the Kent Cup on June 21st, the next Bayford Meadows Summer championship round is on the following weekend of June 28th.