KartFest - Whilton Mill

When an endurance rental karting championship targeted at universities was announced, we were eager to know more. With the test round being at 3 Sisters Circuit, there wasn’t enough of the want or will to make the trek to Wigan to take part, but when the first official round was revealed to be at Whilton Mill, there was a lot more interest..

With the race taking place in the middle of the summer holidays, all our drivers made their own way there, although for races occuring during term time, transport will be provided just as is the case with social races or rounds of the BUKC. We fielded two teams with Marcus, Nathan, Kurt and Aaron combining forces to form Hesketh Racing, a tribute to the Formula 1 lineage of our club’s treasurer. While Oliver, Ed, Charlie and Saif made up the second team for the race. There was also a cheeky last minute appearance by President and BUKC captain Nicole and Ben who would be racing on a separate team but still wearing UBMRC colours so any success they had would be shamelessly claimed by us.

The format for the race was a WM120. The same format as our first social race, meaning a 120 minute endurance race with a 20 minute practice with each driver getting five minutes to familiarise themselves with the circuit and the karts. Unlike our first social race though, this race would be taking place on the 1200m international layout of Whilton Mill with this layout being new to many of our drivers as the traditional weekend qualifiers at Whilton Mill in the BUKC typically use the Zulu (or national) layout as the floodlights are typically in use by by the end of the day. So practice would be vital if we wanted to score a decent result out of all 17 teams competing.

Visibility clear so there were no issues finding the pit entrance and after 20 minutes of practice, Hesketh Racing qualified in 6th thanks to a stunning lap (58.399) from Kurt, while Oliver sadly didn’t have enough time to get up to speed against a field full of drivers who have been racing at Whilton since they were young so the team would start from the back with a 1:01.814.

When all 17 drivers lined up on the grid, there was something in the air that made the event feel extremely well organised. This wasn’t your average corporate karting event. There was a photographer, a videographer and they even had a drone on hand buzzing around getting incredible shots of all the drivers!

Lights out and a composed start saw Kurt gain one position before a series of additional overtakes saw him drag the kart up into 3rd by the end of lap 3. Meanwhile Oliver was getting to grips with the circuit and managed to gain two positions by the end of the first lap. Elsewhere Ben/Nicole’s team with Ben at the wheel were up into 1st from 5th by the end of lap 2, although there was a lengthy battle for the lead with positions swapping over and over against the 2nd placed team. Nathan took over the kart from Kurt but an ambitious move on strategy saw the team take their mandatory refuel at the first driver change, rather than the advised second change (which all other teams did.). This meant that position-wise, it was difficult to measure the progress of the team but we can say that Nathan had an incident free stint with lap times in the mid-low 58s which saw Aaron take over the kart in 6th place. Charlie took over for Oliver’s team at the end of the first stint, showing good awareness to stay out of trouble and got quicker and quicker as the stint went on.

With Aaron now in the kart for Hesketh Racing, it was always going to be difficult with there being no minimum weight for this race however using all the experience he’s gained from his BUKC banditry, he held on well and left Marcus in with a good chance of securing the team a top 5 finish. Ed took the third stint for Oliver’s team and having just taken part in the BUKC 24 hour race for us, he was probably pretty pleased to be handing the kart over to Saif after a consistent 30 minute stint, instead of the consistent 90 minute stints of the 24 hour race.

With Saif taking part in his first outdoor karting race on any circuit, let alone the technical international layout at Whilton Mill it was always going to be difficult being thrown in the deep end against a field of talented drivers, but he managed surprisingly well except for a small moment in the boot section where he made contact with one the front runners. No major time losses for both parties but definitely a learning experience for Saif with the team getting the wooden spoon with their last place finish.

The final stint for Hesketh Racing saw Marcus take over the kart in 8th place and begin his charge to a top 5 finish which started off pretty well with him gaining 6th position courtesy of the team ahead making their final stop, and saw him close the gap to 5th from 10 seconds to just over 5 but then his pace dropped of a cliff. From the sidelines we couldn’t see what was going on but we saw Marcus point to what looked like his engine and assumed the worst. He came into the pits a lap later to change karts but the damage was done and in the end, 11th place was where the team ended up. Disappointing after such a promising start and with Marcus being on the charge going into the closing laps, but what can you do when your kart has an issue. The issue - after catching up with Marcus post-race - turned out to be a puncture which now explains the pace drop off as well as Marcus pointing at the tyre, rather than the engine like we thought.

In slightly more positive news, the team featuring Ben and Nicole - vMax Racing - finished the race in 2nd place so because Nicole was wearing a UBMRC top and visor sticker, while Ben wore his UBMRC PlayerLayer, we are 100% claiming this as a 2nd place finish for UBMRC at KartFest. This is a factual description of events, no need to speculate.

In all seriousness though, it was a great day for all involved and a big thank you has to go out to KartFest for organising such a great event. KartFest may prove to be popular amongst UBMRC members as it’s the perfect midpoint between social races and the BUKC. The level of competition is much higher than social races, but at over half the cost of a round in the BUKC so keep your eyes peeled to get involved.