Young stars shone at the latest round of the BMKC summer championships last weekend at Bayford Meadows Kart circuit in Sittingbourne.
The ten youngest competitors of the day in the Bambino class, had three timed runs throughout the day. Macauley Bishop headed the times in runs one and three and therefore took the points win over Blake Ticehurst, who secured the fastest time in the second run. The remainder of the top six were Tighe Wratten, Lewis Stannard, Marco Horsley and Sherrie Powell.
Matt Hyde made a welcome and popular return to MSA racing at Bayford Meadows securing pole for the Honda Clubman Grand final as he did so. An exciting race saw the lead swap between young Matt and Zach Walters before Ryan Willis came through from his 5th grid slot to snatch the lead on lap 8 of 12. The LICA run kart of Walters briefly took the lead back before the Project One kart of Willis secured the victory, with Walters hot on his tail. A fraught dice behind had Declan Russell snatching 3rd from Hyde’s Ambition kart in 4th, Jack Matthews (KPi) made up 5 positions to finish 5th from Mika Renzullo who had been up to 3rd on the penultimate lap, slipping to 6th. The race’s fastest lap went to the DNL run kart of Joshua Hoy, who finished 9th overall, after starting from 3rd on the grid.
The Junior X30 class only had four entries for this month’s race but didn’t lack in excitement. Bobby Grove on a new Comp kart chassis, continued his impressive Bayford form by taking a dominant win, this by 6.8 seconds, despite easing off near the end to save his tyres. His ‘dab style’ finish celebration showed us how much the win meant to him.
Behind the other three competitors thrilled throughout the two Pre Finals and Grand final. Luke Shopland (Evolution) took 2nd in the 1st pre final but was disqualified in the 2nd after contact with Cameron Poynten (Privateer) saw her collide heavily with the turn 1 tyre barrier. The plucky Poynten recovered fully for the Grand Final and her kart luckily only suffered light damage in the spill, she now wanted to forget about the crash and show what she could do.
In the early laps of the Grand Final, Anthony Amato (Ambition) drove well to hold 2nd behind Grove who was pulling a gap at the front. Poynten was hounding Amato but couldn’t find away past, this was until Shopland , who had been running close behind Cameron, spotted a gap on the inside at turn 1 placing his kart in front of Poynten and Amato, he did however carry a little too much speed and drifted wide on the exit, holding back Amato as he did so, Poynten saw her chance and grabbed the 2nd place from both of the delayed boys, it was an excellent opportunist move that impressed everyone watching. Shopland did have a brief go at taking the place back but half spun at the first infield hairpin, giving third place back to the patient Amato.
Grove also took the fastest lap with the win, Poynten a delighted and rewarding 2nd, from Amato and Shopland close together at the flag.
The five kart Mini Max final was a little more of a settled affair, although the last lap was otherwise dramatic. Thomas Rotherham (LICA) had led for the full 12 laps with Thomas Lawson (GMS) patiently shadowing him . Going into the last section of the infield around the mound, Rotherham went defensive, so Lawson chose a different deeper line which gave him a boost on the exit of the long right hander. Using the kerbs on the inside his extra pace propelled him in front of a stunned Rotherham. It was a very exciting ending to the race one that I am sure young Thomas Rotherham will learn from. Benjamin Boras took 3rd from Brandon Dyer in 4th, Ben Cowley hit problems at the end and was classified 5th.
Spencer Younger was in fine form in the Senior Rotax class, taking a comfortable win in the Grand Final. Darren Bartlett had a great race to secure 2nd, his position was under threat for a most of the race with the battle behind him raging throughout. Rory Pye (G-Tech) came very close to pipping Bartlett at the finish line, both drivers making themselves as small as possible behind their steering wheels ! Nick Packham was 4th from Jamie Shilling who had climbed up through the field in 5th, taking fastest lap along the way. Jack Wall found himself bumped down to 6th from a 4th grid slot. Paul Williams survived and early race turn 1 spin to secure the 177 class.
Troy Beswick and Riley Stephenson made the 19 kart Junior Subaru final their own personal race, by pulling away from the rest early on. There was nothing between the two and after leading for spell, Stephenson decided to play cool and take a healthy bag of points by finishing 2nd. Beswick had driven his GMS kart cooly and appeared to have an answer to any of Riley’s moves.
Zac Spence and James Tomsett mirrored the two leaders by breaking away from their pursuers, finishing 3rd and 4th. Charlie Nash took 5th on the last lap, bumping James Black down to 9th, the latter frustrated at losing a top 6 finish so close to the end. Ross Connolly finished 6th and Riley Stephenson took the fastest lap in his chase of Beswick.
With the clashing SuperOne event elsewhere, entries were still very good in the Honda Cadet class and they gave us a wonderful race. After the pre finals four drivers headed into the Grand Final as favourites. Zach Ripley (DRS), Theo Micouris (Virtus), Callum Gunning (DNL) and Max Herbert now with Project One, fought out a beautifully clean race for the 13 lap duration. Herbert’s initial pace from pole faded as the race progressed leaving Ripley to head the field from Micouris. Gunning further demoted Herbert and set off in chase of the leading two but with a gap having appeared couldn’t quite coax his blue and yellow DNL kart onto their bumpers. Micouris (fastest lap) looked as though he was building an attack for the last lap and sure enough it came, although it was a little too late on the run up to the flag, pulling up alongside the ‘Dab style’ celebrating Chatham driver Ripley, the gap being a mere 0.06 at the line ! Gunning was less than a second behind the leading two in 3rd with Herbert 4th, only just over a second further back. Ruben Stanislaus couldn’t quite get on terms with the top quartet in 5th. Louis Horsley took 6th from a very close race long scrap which included Jack Steadman and class debutants – DNL driver duo of Joshua Hoy and Corbin Newbury.
The last race of the day was for the Junior Max class. KPi’s Oliver Appleby was one of the pre event favourites, this was until his kart was slow off the line in pre final 1 and then stalled in pre final 2, leaving him almost a lap behind at the finish. Sean Berry (GMS) improved as the day went on and made the most of Appleby’s delayed low grid slot, by taking an emphatic win in the Grand Final. Appleby’s Kpi kart had made it to within 1.3 seconds of the victorious Berry at the finish and took the fastest lap too. Luke Freestone finished a competitive 3rd after showing great form all day, Joshua Young was an improving 4th, from Henry Ayres in 5th and Zak Parfett in 6th.
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