2012 Inkart Championship Festival - Daytona Manchester

Last Sunday was the presentation for the overall top three in the Cadet and Junior Inkart Championship at Daytona Manchester.  However, before the presentation took place, there was a Festival race for Cadets, Juniors and Parents.  Tom kindly raced for us in the parents race!

A slightly different format to the races than previous - a two lap qualifier would determine grid positions for each of the heats - fastest to go first.  Samuel, for the first heat started right at the back of the grid - probably due to the change in format and that he was behind a slower driver.   So here is the video from that heat and his grid start was pretty good!


After the three heats, he was placed third on the grid in the final and despite changing places with Jordan for second at around half way through the race, Samuel finished third and received another trophy!

And here is the podium for the Cadet, Junior and Parent (or designated driver!) race finals:

Tom finished second in his final and also received a trophy!

And then the presentations for the overall Championship - covering all 11 rounds from January to November.  Samuel finished 9 times on the podium including a first place and the total of all the points gained meant he finished second overall in the Cadet Inkart Championship!  The other two podium finishers in the Cadet class have both been karting a number of years so its quite an achievement by Samuel as his first ever go in a kart was only just over 18 months ago!  And he is the youngest out of the three by 3 years!

And here he is with Tom and their three trophies!

And there ends the 2012 karting season!  12 trophies in total, 10 indoor races, 1 outdoor race and 1 Championship trophy.  Not a bad haul for his first season of karting - hope it continues next year!

Samuel's Test Day with CKSUK

Samuel had a test day with Champion Kart Services UK (CKSUK) yesterday and we had glorious weather!

Ryan put Samuel in a Cadet kart and let him on the track to see how he'd get on and rather surprised us with a respectable 50 second lap time.  A few tweaks on the kart and he went out again and got the times down to 47 seconds.  Few more tweaks and he went out a couple more sessions, each for around 10 minutes, and he managed 45 seconds.  All his laps were consistent although he had a few spins in the early stages until he got used to having to use his brake rather than lifting off for corners.

Samuel managed to knock in a high 44 second lap but Ryan wanted to see him get closer to 43 seconds and on his final session of the day, he got a 44.1 second lap which after a very hot and long day (with one shunt from another driver that bent part of the axle) was pretty respectable especially as it was his first time on the track.

We were also joined for the day by Tom Sansbury who added his GoPro Camera to Samuel's crash helment and filmed each of the track sessions (and probably a lot of grass footage and of Ryan talking to Samuel!)  Here is the last session of the day with the 44.1 second lap:


Thanks to Ryan, Mike, Tom and Helen for a great day at Hooton Park!

Probably more footage and photos to follow at some point!