Super 1 British Championship - Round One
Lydd International Raceway
23rd April 2006
Qualifying – After months of preparation and hard work the first round of the British Championship had arrived and with 51 of Britains finest drivers raring to go it was going to be one hell of a show. After 2 days of testing it looked as if it was going to be a very close qualifying session and it didn’t disappoint with only 2 tenths of a second covering the top 20 drivers! But it was Robert Foster-Jones who topped the time sheets with a 38:60 five hundredths of a second ahead of Devon Modell with Jack and Greg Harper tied a further one hundredth behind.
Heat 1 – Jack was on p2 for the first heat of the day and he got a brilliant start as he managed to leap frog pole man Devon Modell into the first corner. From then on Jack had it all his own way as he romped to victory by over 3 seconds to make it the perfect start to the day.
Heat 2 – Jack was down on grid 24 for this heat. Jack had a terrible first lap and was down in 26th as they went over the line for lap 2. Jack then started to climb back up through the field eventually reaching 15th when the flag fell.
Heat 3 – P16 for the final heat of the day and this time Jack made no mistake off the line and held his position round the first lap, he then set about cutting his way through the field eventually finishing 8th just behind Tom Fawcett.
Final – After some solid heats and qualifying Jack had made grid 6 for the final and barring any problems it looked as if it was going to be a very close race. After a couple of false starts the race got underway and Jack made a clean start and was still in 6th after the first lap. By lap 4 the leading 6 were still very close and Jack was now up to 4th as he pulled out of the slipstream at the end of the straight to make a place up on number 31 Kenneth P Andrews. Jack then made up two places round the fast left hander on to the straight and was now in 2nd and only 5 or 6 kart lengths behind the leader number 13 Mitchell Bayer Goldman. Over the next 4 lap’s Jack slowly but surly closed in on the leader and by lap 11 he was right with him. But what he hadn’t counted on was the newly crowned British Open champion Jack Whelan flying up from p12. It was now a three way fight for the win with Rob Foster-Jones not far behind in 4th. On lap 12 Whelan took 2nd from Jack but on the return straight Jack managed to squeeze back past but it had only taken 2 overtaking manoeuvres to give Bayer Goldman the few meters he needed to secure the win. So it finished like that with Goldman leading them home with Hawksworth second, Whelan third, Kenneth P Andrews fourth, Rob Foster Jones fifth and Greg Harper rounding out the top 6. Harper also took the fastest lap of the race at a 38:77.
“It’s a great way to start the championship as I collected a lot of championship points. It was once again a fantastic race with action all the way through it. I felt I had the pace to win the race but Mitchell drove a good race to take the win and for the last few laps I had to defend from Jack (Whelan) who had also driven a good race from grid 12. It was a close race and it looks like it could be a very close season”.
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