June 2024

Daytona Milton Keynes Inkart Race

This month I took a trip to Daytona Milton Keynes, im not looking to win the Inkart championship but just take the time to work on my race craft and have some fun with my friends.

The current championship has different types of races, June was a cup race, with is a 5-minute practice, 10 minutes practice and a 25-minute race. There would still be an A and B race but 10 minutes isn’t long to set a good time, especially when there is traffic.

I didn’t qualify very well, mainly as the track was getting warmer when the second qualifying took place, giving those drivers a bit of advantage.

So after qualifying was over, I found I had just missed the cut for the A final and would take pole on the B final. It was still going to be a challenge, there were some good drivers.
From the start I dropped to 3rd with a slow get away, but I raced hard for the first 20 minutes before I started to lap some of the slower karts, getting past the traffic can be hard work, they are having their own race, as was I with Charlie Marden, we raced very closely for the last 5 laps, I was quicker but couldn’t find a spot to pass. On the entry to the last hairpin, I just managed to get under Charlie's kart and make the line 0.04s quicker, taking the win for the B final.

Shenington Club Championship Round 6 Practice
Round 6, the first summer round of the championship, at least that’s what I thought, the weather was going to be the biggest challenge for the Saturday sessions.

6 sessions of 7 minutes to get myself setup for Sunday, we started the day in damp conditions running on wet tyres, my lap times were quite bad but I put that down to the weather, the following 3 sessions were a mixture of anything from a drying track to standing water. It was a real test of my driving abilities, still not setting the timing screens alight I though this was just the setup not being quite right.
Session 5 was finally dry and the times were falling, I will still 2 seconds off the pace and despite all the advice from Marcus my driving coach I just couldn’t get a good lap time.
Session 6 was a washout and that was it, back in the awning taling to dad, he had tried everything to get the pace from the kart, new exhaust, new exhaust, different gearing. Nothing seemed to make a difference.
I left Saturday wondering what I could do, where I could improve and hoping the weather might be better Sunday,

Shenington Club Championship Round 6

This is what I wrote about round 5… to be honest I wasn’t feeling any better for round 6   Race day was going to be as challenging as the practice, 3 heats and a final, a change of tyres and we set out into the 3 lap warm up, again the kart just felt like it was slow.

Heat 1

I started heat 1 in 5th and slipped all the way back to p11 getting caught by some of the novices, I was really trying too but the kart just didn’t have the pace.

Heat 2

Ran smoothly I started P10 but again lacked pace and ended up back in 11th

Heat 3

Another 11th  both dad and I were getting very frustrated, he thought it was me and I kept telling him it was the kart, dad decided that we had to do something.

For the final, we changed to a race engine from Jade and as soon as I hit the circuit I could feel the difference, the engine just pulled better, revved higher and was so much better. I was starting P11 due to the heats, but I pushed hard and soon I was up to P7 and pushing for P6 I raced hard with my team mate Philip Paterau and we swapped positions a few times, crossing the line 0.4s apart with Philip taking 6th place, I was so happy that we had found out where the issues had been for the weekend and round 5, it proves It was the kart all along.

The team will be looking at my engine in the next week to assess why it has been down on power since the rebuild, hopefully its something simple. Funds providing, I will be entering the 3rd event in the WERA tools British Kart Championship that takes place at Shenington in July.

The BKC is the pinnacle for karting in the UK and with the help of my sponsors and parents we hope to make an entry into the great event.

The event is streamed live and attracts a global audience.

More details soon