Archive - Thursday, 22 May 2003


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Stunning performance from karter Hughes

RICHARD Hughes put in a stunning performance at the Shenington Kart Club meeting last weekend to qualify in pole position.

The final race did not go quite in his favour, though, and he finished in second place.

The Castle Eaton driver, supported by Total Butler fuel distributors, stunned the crowd with his driving in the three heats.

He won the first two and then came fourth from the back of the grid in the third to comfortably qualify in pole position.

As the full grid of 125 Rotax Max class drivers pulled out on to the circuit for the first race it started to rain.

All were on the 'slick' dry weather tyres and this meant fingertip control just to keep the kart on the track!

Hughes took the lead at the start and just pulled away from the rest of the field.

Although rain held off for the rest of the day, the surface was still greasy in places.

The next two heats saw some dramatic overtaking manoeuvres, especially in the third race where Richard started 27th and moved up to fourth in just six laps.

The final started badly for Hughes with understeer on the opening laps, allowing current championship leader Adam Constable to take the lead.

Although the two stayed together for the rest of the race, it was another win for Constable with Hughes second and Mark Redding, using Richard's spare engine, in third.

The junior drivers, meanwhile, experienced mixed fortunes with Simon Fountain winning the Junior Rotax final on his new Arrow AX8.

However, although Peter Blakeney, from Calne, put in some fine lap times in Junior TKM, he was squeezed off the track on two occasions.

And Philip Stanley had all sorts of problems with the traffic, but recovered well to finish fifth in Junior Intermediate.

l Hughes will be at Whilton Mill on May 25 and, hopefully, testing at Shenington a week later in preparation for the second round of the Max Challenge World Final Qualifiers.

The rest of the team will be at Rissington Kart Club on Sunday, June 1. Further details on the team's KDesign web site at: www.bizness.co.uk/karting