THE Maxxis Tyres TKM festival weekend is the pinnacle of the TKM racing calendar, which sees the top TKM drivers attend the Kimbolton Kart track in East Anglia to compete against each other.

Wiltshire’s Louis Harvey crossed the line, top 3 in all the heats, with a mixture of wins, seconds and thirds, as he competed in both the Festival Elite and the ‘O’ Plate competitions and brought home two 4th place trophies after the finals.

“I was disappointed not to have finished higher or even won either of the competitions as I had the pace and was consistently setting fastest sectors and laps. The finals were very challenging especially with the changing weather and the fact that because it’s a one weekend competition people race very differently.” said Harvey.

This year’s TKM festival saw 37 drivers enter for the Festival competition and 27 drivers enter for the O plate. Out of the 37 drivers in the Festival only the top 20 progress to the Elite final and the remainder battle it out for the Festival cup.

Harvey qualified 3rd overall for the Elite pre final and after a great battle took the chequered flag. Unfortunately, as Harvey and the leading driver rounded the final corner, they made contact and a steward’s decision went against Harvey as he was deemed to have gained an unfair advantage. This gave him a 5 second penalty dropping him to 5th for the Elite Final.

After a weekend of sunshine, the heavens had opened just before the finals took place leaving all the drivers frantically changing set-ups and then racing on a what they thought the track conditions would be like. Harvey drove well but only managed to take 4th place overall.

Harvey had qualified 5th for the O plate final and was determined to improve on this position, with the track drying quickly it was another frantic change back to full dry set-up. As the race commenced the top 4 drivers managed to break away as Harvey was caught in the first corner traffic. Harvey was unable to catch the front pack and ended up battling to maintain his position for the whole race eventually crossing the line 5th. However, a penalty for one of the other drivers saw him promoted to 4th place.

Harvey will race again here at the beginning of September for the next round of the British Karting Championship.