LKRC

Grey skies ruled the day at the Fulbeck Circuit for Round 2 of Lincolnshire Kart Racing Club’s
2010 Winter Championship. The ever optimistic Met office had forecast torrential downpours
for the area to last through Sunday morning. Thankfully these mostly held off, despite some
rain in the early hours. The dark and full sky however meant the circuit was slow to dry out,
with intermediate tyres being the dominant choice right up to the last few heats.
For the finals all runners were out on slicks, many for the first time. The track was still
slick off line, and drivers did a great job throughout the finals to stay on track as often as they did.

Comers

A lights-to-flag victory went to Cory Stevens , with a great measured
drive. The championship pace setter from Round 1, Jack Bliss,
started in the middle of what was a fairly small field, but quickly took
advantage of a tentative first lap to move up into second place.
Although he set the fastest lap of the final, Jack didn’t give himself
an easy ride. A late excursion off circuit nearly lost him the hard
fought podium position. With Cory Stevens not scoring championship
points, Jack consolidates his lead in the championship, looking
strong with just one round left. Oliver Dunkerley also deserves a
mention, as he finished up a position on his grid slot only the day
after passing his ARKS test.

Cory Stevens

WTP

Sam Priest is dominating the WTP class in the Winter Championship,
and converted his Round 2 pole position, scoring fastest lap along the
way. Though Sam was challenged at points in the race by a few of
the runners, he held firm and never looked like losing first position.
There were some great fights behind Sam however, and the podium
positions were swapped around through the race, with Jordan Falding
and Eddie Hack especially having a close battle – after Jordan
recovered from an early drop to fourth position. Eddie eventually took
second from Jordan, but both were lucky to keep their podium
positions after a last corner collision nearly allowed the following pack
to close and pass them. Another close run race was run between
Kyle Cassidy, Tomas Turner and Sam Brough. Although the positions
rarely changed, it was fascinating to watch these three really pushing
each other, with no-one giving an inch.

Sam Priest

Stephen Letts

Junior TKM

Only three runners are registered in this class for the Winter
Championship, and Round 2 ran identically to form from Round 1.
Stephen Letts enjoyed a dominant race, setting a fastest lap nearly a
second quicker than the next quickest runner. In any motorsport that
is a huge gap, and at times you could see Stephen really pushing his
kart to the edge, drifting through the corners. Behind Stephen things
were a little closer between Aidan Charity and Ashley Davison. In the
final heat these two had put on a real show, swapping positions and
fighting hard for the vital second place. In the final however Aidan
slowly edged away from Ashley, and by the end of the race had a
comfortable 5 second lead.

Mini Max

The Mini Max field put on a great display in their final, helped along by one of the day’s bigger fields. At the
start Jordan Baines leapt into the lead, but he couldn’t hold onto the advantage and had dropped to third by
the end of the second lap. Pole sitter Lemuel Pay re-took the lead, and Milton Steele-Vaessen rose up a
place to second. Behind the lead pack the first run through the bus stop had caused chaos, with Derek
Rosen, Kerstin Lankey and Tom Sharpe-Reynolds all being delayed by spins and clashes. The front three
settled into their positions, with Peter Sharrocks briefly looking like joining the lead group to mount a
challenge. It was clearly a hard fought battle, as Lemuel nearly lost control at the last hairpin, before
gathering it back together and just keeping hold on the lead. On the next lap it was Milton’s turn, as he
lost it on the same corner and was unable to get back on track. This let Jordan into second, and Peter
into third – positions they kept till the end of the race. Kerstin was not quite done with off track moments
either, running wide onto the grass out of the last corner. This caused finish line marshal David
Manchester to make a quick exit stage right, just before losing his ankles! Jordan continued pushing to
the end of the race, threatening to reel Lemuel back in, and taking fastest lap on lap 9. But the race
finished with Lemuel, Jordan and Peter taking 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively.

Corby Gormley

Junior Max

Corby Gormley started Round 2 as the championship leader, and put in
a fine drive to take the victory in the Junior Max field. Starting from pole
Corby took the early lead, and gently eased away through the race to
take a four second victory. While the race winner seemed almost a
foregone conclusion however, things were much more interesting in the
battles behind. Callum Sutton had started second , but lost out in the
opening lap, dropping to 5th position. Instead of being rash however,
Callum got his head down, put in some great lap times (including
sharing fastest lap with winner Corby) to fight back through the pack to
retake second place by the end of lap 4. Ben Greaves had moved up to
second early on, but fell out of the top three, and was slowly dropped
back as Callum and Ashley Taylor diced for 2nd and 3rd. Ashley pushed
throughout the race, but had to be content with the last podium spot,
which still represented a great performance having started 5th.

Senior Max

The Senior Max won the dubious honour of being the day’s dullest
final, not that Sam Clegg will care about that, having sealed a
start-to-finish victory. The field didn’t separate out too much, but
no-one ever really looked like mounting much of a charge for the
positions ahead, and so the race order stayed much the same at
the finish at is had at the start. Sarah Budby was the big winner in
terms of positions gained, moving up to finish 5th from a grid slot of
7th. Jason Tingle and Chris Lawrence completed the podium, with
Jason also gaining the fastest lap.

Sam Clegg

Martin Smith

Jake Shortland

250 / 125 Gearbox

The 250s and 125s were combined together due to small girds. In the
250s, the race was dominated by the top three from the heats. Martin
Smith, Ron Stamp and Tim Woods started 1st to 3rd respectively,
and locked out the podium from the start. They ran each other close
through the race, but after Tim had taken Ron for second at the start
the positions never changed. This, however, despite Tim making a
brave last-gasp move on Martin at the final hairpin, which very nearly
paid off. Behind the front three spinners at towards the end of lap 1
caused some trouble as they came back onto the circuit into the path
of others. It didn’t seem like foul play, rather just people being in the
wrong place at the wrong time, but it did seem to wrong foot some of
the runners for the first few laps.

In the 125 class Jake Shortland had things pretty much his own way,
ending up the only finisher in the class. Mary Howarth was caught up
in the first lap fracas and was classified two laps down on Jake.
Mary’s fastest lap showed she could have been more competitive
without the incident, with a time only a few hundredths shy of Jake’s
fastest. Max Snell was unclassified after a mechanical failure on the
8th lap.

That concluded an superb days racing. The next meeting will be in March 27th / 28th

Words by Chris Page (www.motorsport-central.co.uk)
Photos by Steve Cawthorn