Jamie & Luke @ Clay Pigeon

Jamie has been generally very good through his first year in karts, after his first six months as a novice, Jamie now finds himself driving against far more experienced hands. This meeting saw 4x of the country’s biggest engines on test with various runners and we were looking forward to a great display from the BRK gang led by Guy Cunnington (#3) and of course Luke Preston (#44) who is displaying great form right now ready for a winter championship series.

With the practice in cool air, the few odd laps were insufficient to detect a small problem with the geometry which of course, as always in H1, exposed itself with a distinct lack of back end grip - mainly caused by the kart squeezing the ground hard enough to remove the track from Dorset - so the required changes were made ready for H2.

Moments before H2 as our confidence had returned we detected water in the fuel system and despite the rush the call to the grid left Jamie racing a steam engine for the heat, we were a second off but without any doubt the “greenest” kart on the grid

H3 saw a solid improvement using 100% petrol and the normal setup, Jamie held his own mid order and placed himself 17th for the final…commendable considering the oddities that we don’t normally have.

The final saw a red flag incident on lap 1, a short delay……….and then the driver who caused the red flag being inexplicably placed back into his original position?? To date, my experiences only recall returning drivers being placed at the back for a restart if they caused it following the abuse of the system several years ago however on we went as you do..!

Jamie had a strong drive, in the low 41’s it was a little too late to get up into the top 10 mix but we were on the pace for the upper grid area so were happy, thankfully some of the lads who had been generally quick through the heats had got the setup wrong in the final and were running around .5 down so we had a chance to mix with some experience and catch up with some of the road blocks ahead, we finished mid order but glad to have the pace back and look forward to the last round.

At the front Guy was battling hard and Luke was chasing the front three kart train down, the final hairpin saw the train involved in a complete change as the lads jostled and Guy crossed first with Ben Burgess breathing down his neck, Luke drove home to a really well deserved 4th place.

Some cracking racing at Clay and great to watch, having the Super One lads on site as always brought some great racing but they didn’t get it all their own way in the heats as a few of the local club racers led them around at an astonishing pace being honest, it’s that level of determination of course reveals the true racers and the result reflected this, pretty sure that Ben Burgess has won the Clay Championship and that’s a really deserved result for a lad that has worked hard all the way even when the 2 stroke didn’t work for him – Well done Ben I hope that’s not a premature comment.

Onward and upward like a properly installed emulsion tube then!