What a nice weekend in the sun, I am sure Courtney felt right at home in her first UK race as we hit 30 degrees and saw nearly as much as she does in the south of Spain.

It was a pleasure to have Courtney and her father Paul join us for the race weekend at Whilton and we all enjoyed the sun, the company and a very competitive weekend both on the track and in the workshop. Thanks must go to Jonathan at JSR for providing us with a roof and also some great carbs and engines.

Courtney ran as number 96 in Junior and Cameron his normal 66. On Saturday we ran the 09 engines for the first time at Whilton and with Courtney being new to Rotax and new to Whilton she had a massive learning curve. The good news is that not only did she learn quickly but she also showed us all how talented she is. By the end of Saturday she was setting very credible times on used tyres and Cameron had a good morning before the set-up started to go the wrong way and slowed him. With a 47 dead for Cameron and a 47.3 for Courtney we were very pleased.

Sunday’s grid positions proved interesting with both Courtney and Cameron having a pole position in heats 2 and 3 respectively. Cameron has never started from Pole as a junior and Courtney never in her past as the Spanish system involves timed qualifying.

Heat 1 had very respectable finishes of 10^th for Cameron and 12^th for Courtney with some great lap times of 46.80 and 47.10 and a good little battle that had both drivers having a lot of fun as well.

Heat 2 was the controversial heat for Cameron, starting in Pole he was well positioned in 3^rd place on lap 2 when he was pushed and then overtaken by a group of 4 while offline on the same corner under waved yellow flags. The clerk of the track had in the morning said he would be punishing the lack of respect for flags but even after an appeal at the race end he refused to take any action so 8^th was in the end a reasonable result. Courtney had a great heat until closing the door on someone who decided they didn’t want to have the door closed on them so a small off track excursion put her back to 16^th but yet another good fighting performance.

Heat 3 was Courtney’s first pole ever and she handled this with great aplomb and a 13^th place finish 0.3 behind Cameron was very acceptable. Cameron raced well and due to a small mistake lost a couple of places 2 laps from the end to finish 12^th from a grid of 19th.

This put Cameron on P9 for the final, his first qualification in the top 10 and Courtney in 13^th. After a relatively calm start and unlike Cameron only dropping 2 places the race was on, he regained the 2 places after 7 laps and then had a very long chase on to try and catch 8^th but in the end a lot of effort more than halved the gap but didn’t see him close enough to challenge. The encouraging times were confirmed by the clock in that he had started the day 1.2 seconds off the fastest times and ended the day just 0.8 off fastest and only 0.5 of the pack fighting for 3^rd. Courtney had an initial battle with multiple karts that she won and cleared off finishing in a clear 12^th more than 2.5 seconds ahead of 13^th and 7 seconds ahead of the number 58 who she had been fighting with for several laps at the start, well done Courtney, great work and we look forward to even more progress next month at Whilton s 3 day meeting when we will have bolted on a few more special parts to help her driving style.

In conclusion this was a great weekend, sun, racing and a team atmosphere that encouraged the best from both mechanics and drivers. Anyone reading this is more than welcome to come visit us in our awnings or workshops at any event, we are here to put some of the fun back into racing and I think that in the coming months people we see us having a great time and getting very close to the magical first victory that we are seeking.