Tamworth

InKart

There was a small chance of rain on the horizon for the first round of Inkart in the new year, with two healthy grids ready to compete for the championship.

In the first heat of the day, Zayn Perry dominated on his return to Tamworth - winning the Junior category by over ten seconds. His next best competition was in Theo Laverty, who was not really able to get onto the pace of Zayn but drove a very tidy race to finish second. In third was Olivier Guintoil, a driver who was certainly putting himself into contention for the overall race. As for the cadets, Ethan Guest drove a very impressive race to win - he will probably be expecting to challenge for the championship at the end of the year. Placed second was Henry Gordon, who was involved in a photo-finish that saw him avoid victory by just a tenth of a second. Micah Hunte-Nelson could feel very happy with his third place, putting himself into what he would feel as A-Final contention.

Group 2 were next out onto the track, and this time Tom Justice took a brilliant victory. He was not unchallenged though, as Harvey Preen was only a little over a second behind. Both drivers were the class of the field, with Rhys Kings not quite managing to keep up throughout the course of the race, though he still showed quite promising pace. In terms of the cadets, Harry Fitch and Zachary Smith took part in a very entertaining battle which eventually saw Zachary come out on top, but only by five tenths of a second. Thomas Baxter was not too far behind, though he was tasked with holding off both Joseph Smith and Ted Hitchman, the three of them having a fantastic battle.

The third heat of the day saw a bit of a comeback from Theo Laverty after missing out in the first race, winning the heat. However, he struggled to keep Olivier behind - the debutant missing out by only two tenths of a second. In third was Zayn Perry, who had done enough to secure his A-Final qualification despite a difficult second heat. Micah Hunte-Nelson finally got a heat race victory for the cadets, dominating the race ahead of second-placed Ethan Guest. Henry Gordon was third place, he had a fantastic battle with Ethan Guest and only feel behind by about a tenth of a second at the end.

Into the final heat race of the day, Tom Justice made it a double though only by a tenth of a second from a very speedy Cooper Campbell-Lees. Both drivers had a fantastic battle and would've hoped to do it again in the A-Final, but unfortunately Cooper missed out qualification by just a couple of points. Harvey Preen was also in the battle for the lead, himself only missing out on race victory by two tenths of a second. For the cadets, Harry Fitch took a step further than he did in the first race, taking a win by around seven seconds. Zachary Smith finished second in a recovery drive, spinning early but crafting some excellent moves to eventually get back up the order. One of the drivers he passed late on was Thomas Baxter, who held onto third.

Once all points were worked out, the grid was set for the B-Final, and it proved to be a very entertaining race. Olivier Guintoil managed to take the win, finishing nearly three seconds ahead of a frustrated Cooper Campbell-Lees, who tried just about everything to get passed the eventual winner. Rhys Kings drove fantastically to secure a podium spot, finishing in third. It was a similar story in the cadets, though this time the battles were found further down the order. Ted Hitchman proved to be the best of the lot, winning by a fairly sizable margin. The honours for second and third were fought out between Jack Charles-Bailey and Joseph Smith, with Jack getting the better of the two and finishing in second. Joseph Smith had to settle for third, still not a bad result for the first race of the year.

Finally, the A-Final went out on to the track and it also proved to be a very entertaining affair. Tom Justice eventually took victory, winning by almost five seconds to Theo Laverty. Similar to some of the heat races, it was for second and third that most of the battling was had. Theo Laverty eventually finished ahead of a charging Harvey Preen, an impressive defensive drive. As for the cadets, Zachary Smith took a really well-crafted and dominant victory. In second was Ethan Guest, but only by the skin of his teeth. He had to get the elbows out in defense late into the day against eventual third-placed runner Harry Fitch.

It was a very good morning of racing in Inkart, and we look forward to welcoming all drivers back for Round 2 on the 28th January!

SuperChamps 

The first round of Superchamps took place on the 13th January at Daytona Tamworth, using the Grand Prix format of racing, providing some very entertaining racing.

N-35 ST

Qualifying saw impressive pace from Ned Morris, who went six tenths of a second faster than anyone on the grid to take overall and lighweight pole position. Second placed was Tom Duffy, who himself was only a tenth of a second faster than the high-flying Baxter Rawlings. Ned’s laptime of a 1:02.386 proved to be the fastest lap time of the day overall. In the heavyweights, Jacob Connellan dominated, lapping a couple of seconds faster than his only heavyweight competition in Xiaofeng Yang.

Into the fifteen-minute sprint race, Ned Morris stormed to a relatively unchallenged victory by seven seconds to Baxter Rawlings. Both drivers had quite quiet races, not really being challenged by anyone around them and maintaining gaps both ahead and behind. Nikodem Benonski was third-placed, not quite managing to challenge Baxter but lapping very quickly and finishing comfortably ahead of fourth. An impressive qualifying stint turned into an equally as impressive race stint for Jacob, who was able to take victory in the heavyweights ahead of Xiaofeng.

The final saw a slightly less dominant victory for Ned Morris, who held off early challenges to win by a solitary two seconds. Closer racing was found behind, where Tom Duffy drove on the defensive for much of the race to stay ahead of Baxter Rawlings, but only by a tenth of a second. Continuing his fine form, Jacob Connellan won the heavyweight class with a best lap time of a 1:03.276, finishing ahead of Xiaofeng Yang (who ended up in second).

DMAX-GT

After an impressive run in most of the previous season, Ben Smiles made a statement in the first qualifying session of the year, putting it on pole position with a laptime of a 56.760. However, he would not be joined by a lightweight counterpart on the front row of the grid as Richard Lavender, competing in the heavyweight class, set a magnificent laptime of a 56.885 to go just about a tenth of a second behind. Ben’s competition in the lightweight class would be Jason Hately (3rd overall) and Benjamin Tomkinson-Gray (5th overall). As for Richard, he would have to contend with Greg Chapman and Stuart Corr.

Our first DMAX superchamps race of the season in the fifteen-minute sprint saw Richard Lavender put up a very reasonable fight to the lightweight Ben Smiles, however it would be Ben that eventually took both lightweight and overall victory by just about three seconds. Jason Hately was second in the lightweights, finding most of his entertainment being a battle with Ben Tomkinson-Gray. Richard finished an impressive second overall, winning the heavyweight category a few overall places ahead of Greg Chapman and Chris Swannell.

Heading into the final race of the day, Ben Smiles dominated – winning by over fifteen seconds. His main competition in the race was Benjamin Tomkinson-Gray, who was incredibly impressive on DMAX debut in second. Jason Hately rounded out the overall and lightweight podium in third, with a best laptime of a 56.743. In the heavyweights, Greg Chapman won by six seconds to Stuart Corr, with third placed Ryan Delacourt finishing a few places behind in third.

Sandown Park

InKart

InKart got underway on a very crisp January morning, after being assigned to their heats the drivers took to the track to start their practice sessions, learning the conditions on this cold morning.

Heat one in the Juniors got underway with David Szucs-Farkas setting the pace early on and managing to keep the rest of the field behind him by a solid 1.3 seconds. Behind David there was a great battle for second place with Leo Edger taking the position by 2 tenths from Jack Bromham in third.

Heat two in the juniors had the track warming up after some running, we could see this in the way that the lap times were dropping. This was proven by the winner of the heat Nicolai Eidsgaard getting times over a second faster than the fastest times in the previous session. Nicolai came home to take the win with Bertie Hodgson very closely behind by only 3 tenths of a second. Harrison Bishop took the final spot on the podium 2.8 seconds off the lead.

Heat three was a very close race from start to finish. The top 3 as they crossed the line after their 10 minutes were only separated by less than half a second. David Szucs-Farkas our previous heat winner dropped down to forth as Leo Edger took the win going one better than he managed in his previous heat and beating second place Jack Bromham by only just over a tenth of a second. Closely followed by Callum Ince in third position.

Heat four in the Juniors got underway shortly after with our previous heat 2 winner Nicolai Eidsgaard picking up where he left off and taking another victory, this time only 3 tenths ahead of second place Ellis Mckenzie who had a great heat all the way from start to finish. third place in our final heat went to Bertie Hodgson who had another strong drive after his previous second place finish setting up everybody nicely for our junior finals.

Moving over to our heats for the cadets, heat one got underway all the drivers were feeling the cold before the adrenaline of the day ahead kicked in. As we went green for the first heat it was 4 of the drivers setting the pace. Felix Heywood, Sebastian Mejer, Marcus Cooper and Daniel Marutyak all trading very competitive lap times. The heat ended with Sebastian taking the win followed closely by Felix and Marcus Cooper taking the final spot on the podium.

Heat two was shortly after the excitement of heat one with the Telfords (Adam and Sarah) setting the early pace and Leger Dimitriou sitting very closely behind in third. By the end of this heat the top 3 as mentioned above were over a lap ahead of forth and fifth position and lapping on average 7 seconds faster than the rest of the field. The final results by the end of the heat were Adam and Sarah Telford followed in third by Leger Dimitriou.

Heat three had the same 4 drivers setting the pace again from the start but this time it was Marcus Cooper who found himself defending the lead from Daniel Marutyak, Sebastian Mejer and Felix Heywood. By the end of the heat Marcus and Daniel had pulled away from the field by 5 seconds and took the top 2 steps on the podium with a strong drive from Sebastian Mejer to bring him home in third.

Heat 4 again had the same three drivers gunning for the podium with some fantastic racing from the Telford twins and Leger Dimitriou, however by the end of the heat due to some incidences on track it was Leger who took home the win in this heat with a gap of 13.7 seconds to second place Adam Telford. Sarah Telford was just behind, only two tenths as they crossed the line.

Junior final B

After the teaser of the heats it was time to go racing for the finals at Daytona Sandown park. The track had had a lovely amount of sun on it throughout the morning, we were heading into the final with beautiful conditions and everyone in good spirits.

It was Ethan Critchley starting on pole position for the Junior B final with Harrison Rudge lining up with him on the front row of the grid. As we got going and headed own to the first corner it was Harry Pickles in third position making the move and taking second position away from Harrison. Further down the order Lucs Wills lost a position to William Bradbery to demote him to fifth. For the next few laps, the lead changed hands a couple of times until on lap 9 Harrison Rudge who had been sitting in second waiting for a chance to make his move finally saw a gap and went for it. He made the overtake stick and never looked back leading for the remainder of the race.

By lap 16 and the end of the race Harrison had managed to pull out a 2 second gap to Ethan in second and secured his win. Harry Pickles took home third where he started, William Bradbery came home just 3 seconds off the leader in forth.

Junior final A

As we got going it was Ollie Peters who was making the moves early on. Starting from eighth position he was making moves nearly every lap and by lap 10 had got himself up to forth position. Other early movers included Jack Bromham who started in the middle of the pack but by lap 6 was already into third. The race then settled down for a few laps as all drivers were getting more and more brave into braking zones trying to find their desired spot to make a move. The fact that positions were not changing really shows the defensive and clean driving prowess that these drivers have developed by racing here at Daytona. Towards the end of the race and feeling the pressure to get some of these moves done it was Ollie Peters that suffered unfortunate bump from Nicolai Eidsgaard that sent him from battling for third down the order to last position. Nicolai received a 3-place penalty for the move that dropped him down the order from third to sixth.

With the drama that unfolded it meant that our final podium for Junior final A was Jack Bromham having a great and clean drive to secure the win. Leo Edger our on-track winner unfortunately got into a tangle himself deserving of a 1 place drop making him take the second step on the podium and a great drive from Callum Ince to take home the final top 3 position.

Cadet final B

Cadet final B got underway with 4 drivers taking to the track. Harvey Ball lined up on pole position with Felix Heywood in second and Daniel Marutyak lining up with him on the second row of the grid in third. Bobby Turner bringing up the rear in forth.

Felix Heywood made a early move on lap 1 that took him up to P1, Harvey Ball losing out on lap 1 and by lap 5 had dropped from pole position down to third. Daniel Marutyak staying patient until lap 5 before making his move on Harvey by being later on the breaks and taking the corner. The positions then stayed the same for the whole race until the final lap of the race. Daniel Marutyak made a great move for the lead on Felix Heywood swapping the front 2 drivers round on the final lap of the race. Your final finishing positions were Daniel taking the win, Felix coming in with a strong second even though he will be disappointed and Harvey coming home in third. Bobby Turner finishing in forth.

Cadet final A

Our Cadet A final got underway with Sebastian Mejer lining up on pole position, Marcus Cooper joining him on the front row of the grid and Adam Telford lining up in third. As we got going it was our third placed driver Adam that made the moves going from P3 to taking the lead on lap 1. Sebastian dropping down to second and Marcus finding himself in third. Positions stayed the same for the most part the next few laps as drivers found their feet with the ever-changing track warming up in the sunshine. Adam Telford found himself battling to keep first position with Sebastian Mejer for the middle part of the race as the lead swapped and changed between the pair of them. Great driving from both made a very exciting watch.

Towards the end of the race Sebastian appeared to have worked out Adams preferred spots to try and make a move, finding himself alone out front as Adam started battling with his sister Sarah in third. Adam and Sarah then battled for second position to the checkered flag swapping and changing nearly every lap. However, they crossed the line and it was Adam that took second and Sarah taking the final step on the podium in a another great final here at Sandown Park.

After a great day out for everyone involved we look forward to seeing you all for round 2 of our InKart championship.

Junior Sprint League

A cold winters afternoon greeted the 12 drivers as they arrived at the track for round 1 of Junior sprint league in 2024.

Qualifying got underway with some fast laps being posted right from the start. Fastest laps were being traded by Nicolai Eidsgaard and Leo Edger with Ellis Mckenzie in the mix. Pole position went to Nicolai Eidsgaard with a 51.918, Leo Edger only being a tenth behind.

The race got underway with the top 4 starting to break away from the rest of the field. It was Nicolai Eidsgaard leading the field for the first few laps and then Leo Edger took the lead with a great move on the breaks, he then held it with a great defensive drive from lap 9 until lap 22.

The final few laps of the race the drivers all closed up, then 2 laps from the end Nicolai Eidsgaard made a move into turn 8 and got alongside over the start/finish line and as they went into turn 1 it was Nicolai Eidsgaard's corner to take by the time they hit the breaking zone for turn 2.

As they came over the line to finish the race, the top 4 were only separated by half a second. It was Nicolai Eidsgaard that took the round 1 win with David Szucs-Farkas making a cut back move on the final corner pipping Leo Edger to second place on the line. Ellis Mckenzie taking 4th position.

7.4 seconds down the road it was Oliver Bush that came home in 5th after a great race with Ollie Peters who only trailed behind by just over a second. Further down the order we had Dmitry Borovskiy 10 seconds off the lead with the 3 Harrys behind (Harry Skinner, Harry Bedford and Harry Pickles). Finally another 6 seconds down the road we had George Pitch and Solomon bringing up the rear.

Thursday Night League

SODI

A field of 25 drivers took to the track on this very chilly below zero January night. The layout that faced the drivers was the Grand Prix layout with some familiar faces but also several new contenders to the championship. As Qualifying got underway it was Steve Hannon who was repeatedly setting fastest lap. He was closely matched by Lino Lucas and Rafael Blanco – Bush but after the 10 minutes it was Steve who was fastest by just 3 tenths over the other 2 drivers respectively. The race got underway with Steve managing to create a gap over the field from the very start, the race was on for 2nd place though as Rafael Blanco – Bush, Luka Nik and Jules Larkin battling away for the entirety of the race. Lino Lucas also managed to get involved in this battle as the race went on. Alfie Shrubb was closely behind with George Masters and Jonathan Fuchsel all in the mix for 6th place.

As the race drew to a close it was Steve who managed to get 12 seconds over the field and take the race win with the full 26 points getting the fastest lap too. Luka Nik took second just beating Rafael Blanco – Bush to third. Lino Lucas just missed out on the podium but took 4th place. Jules Larkin was in fifth.

DMAX

22 drivers took to the grid for round 1 of the Dmax Thursday night league. By this point in the evening it was a staggering minus 5 degrees, some of the Karts felt the conditions and had to be swapped out before we got underway.

Archie Bullard got away vey well of the line and led into turn 1 closely followed behind by Ian Del-Pizzo and Antonio Sholin. These three drivers had a great race from start to finish always within fighting distance of each other and lot letting up at all. Further down the field there was a gap forming as the top 3 drove away into the distance.

William Tidnam was leading the rest of the field with some great defensive driving to keep him in forth. Towards the end of the race and the top 3 seemingly to be settled our eyes turned to Charlie Foster over the last few laps. Charlie had been gaining on the Karts in front of him while he was sitting in seventh (starting 8th). With the final laps approaching he made his moves and finished in a solid fifth position with Karlis Elmanis in sixth and Luka Nik coming home in seveth seventh after a very cold and crisp January evening to round of Thursday Night League round 1.

Results:

Milton Keynes

Sandown Park

Tamworth

Photos:

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