COVKARTSPORT . . .
The Established Low-Cost Steppingstone Into Motorsport Founded In 1996
Below you will find all the race reports & photos from the 2009 COVKARTSPORT Winter Series
COVKARTSPORT 2009: Winter Series: Round 3 (Final round)
Sunday 29th april
Photos: Peter Realf Photography.
With all the championships still open, the championship rolled into the Stretton Circuit. It was a dry but chilly day but everyone was up for the fight.
Juniors:
With Jack Macaulay already taking two pole positions in the winter series so far, the sharp money was on the novice driver to take yet another pole, in which he did not disappoint. Mark Wylie-Mackay took a good second on the grid to keep himself in title contention with Kaine Boswell taking his best qualifying of the series so far with third. With three guest drivers in the field, the regulars had to watch their backs.
A good start by Macaulay meant that he lead early on with the field battling for position behind. Guest driver Alex Rigby made a good start and was starting to work his way through the field and had a good battle with Wylie-Mackay, Boswell and Sam Randon. As the race progressed, Macaulay had to take avoiding action at turn one and collided with the foam barrier on the outside of the circuit. This allowed Rigby, Wylie-Mackay and Randon to use this to their advantage and take control of the first three positions. After weaving through the traffic and controlling the pace, Alex Rigby took his first victory in COVKARTSPORT and the full ten points. Despite Wylie-Mackay only finishing second, he was the overall winner of the round due to his faster lap, which turned out to be the fastest lap. Sam Randon kept up his good form from his debut in Ancaster to take third place and another podium. Jack Macaulay recovered well to finish fourth and this was enough to take the Junior title by three points from Wylie-Mackay with Randon taking third, after missing the first round. Kaine Boswell showed consistency pays by taking the Junior Plus title.
Lightweights:
With three drivers in serious contention for the lightweight title, the races were surely going to be exciting. The oldest racer in the field, Bob Moss showed the youngsters how to do it by taking pole position for race one with James Taylor and Ash Carter doing no harm to their championship chances by claiming second and third on the grid respectively. The third title contender, Adam Wheeldon suffered in qualifying, claiming seventh on the grid. 2008 Lightweight Plus champion John Stanton took pole for race two with Krzysztof Bednarski claiming his best qualifying of the winter series in second. Ben Westlake, returning to the series, managed a strong third.
In Race one, a good start by Ash Carter meant that he could control the pace from the front and fight off all his championship contenders. Taylor and novice Chris Angus worked their way through to run in second and third with a strong battle forming between Moss, Wheeldon, David Whitehouse and Jo McCarthy for fourth. As the battle headed up out of the hairpin, the group closed together, which meant Whitehouse tipped Moss round, who in turn slid into the recovering Wheeldon. This meant that McCarthy was able to take advantage and gained two positions. Upfront, Carter streaked away and claimed a clear victory and after a titanic battle, which involved much overtaking, Angus managed to get the better of Taylor, who settled for third. Wheeldon managed to recover from the incident to overtake Whitehouse on the final lap to claim fourth in the race and confirm his second position in the championship, with the pride going to Adam for taking the fastest lap of the day and being the only driver to set a lap time below 35 seconds.
In Race two, an amazing first few laps by Stuart Corr saw the 2008 Winter Lightweight Plus champion slice through the field, from seventh on the grid, to take the lead from John Stanton. Shane Anderson followed the experienced Corr through the field, to produce a good battle between himself and Ben Westlake. This battle continued for half of the race, with Anderson pulling clear. With all the battling going on behind, Corr managed to keep his lead and take a clear victory, after suffering in qualifying around this tight but fast circuit. Shane kept his gap over the rest to take second place, his best finish in the winter series. Ben Westlake kept his third place on the grid to claim the same position but beat Anderson in the overall rankings due to taking the fastest lap.
Overall, Ash Carter managed to take victory over Stuart Corr, with Ben Westlake taking third. This gave Carter the Lightweight title and Overall Winter Series title. John Stanton�s nine points left himself and Stuart Corr equal on points at the top of the Lightweight Plus title, with Corr retaining the title by taking more victories.
Heavyweights:
Again, there were three realistic challengers for the heavyweight title, with Peter Fowler, Daran Pazzaglia and Peter Realf all in contention. Shaun Jobson made the best of qualifying to gain pole position for race one. Peter Fowler took second on the grid with Jon Lowes claiming third. Richard Middleton and Robin Lang set the same lap time for the second race, however Richard started from pole due to setting the time first. Daran Pazzaglia kept his challenge on track with third on the grid.
For the first race, Fowler launched straight to the front of the field. Martin Stone and Richard Westlake both made good runs from midfield grid positions to move ahead of Peter Realf. Martin Gilbert created an amazing drive from ninth on the grid to slip through the field almost un-noticed, which left him in the top half of the field. By now, Fowler was gone into the distance and took a clear victory to emulate his victory from Sutton. Gilbert managed to overtake the entire field apart from Fowler to take a brilliant second position in the race. Lowes kept his grid position to finish third. Peter Realf was unable to recover, finishing in sixth, which ended his title challenge for the winter series.
Following a restart to race two, Kieran Rochell took less than five laps to take the lead of the field with Daran Pazzaglia following him through in his fight for the title. Gulam Nabi made a good start to the race to become involved in a battle with Richard Middleton and Nick Stanley, with Stanley and Middleton pulling a slight lead later in the race. Rochell went on to set the fastest lap of the heavyweight drivers all day. Stanley managed to pull clear of Middleton, who fell into the clutches of Nabi. Kieran Rochell took a clear victory after coming through from fifth on the grid with Nick Stanley passing Daran Pazzaglia on the final lap for second. Middleton finished fourth after taking pole position, just getting beaten by the pace in the race.
Overall, Kieran Rochell was the victor ahead of Peter Fowler in second. Nick Stanley successfully claimed third from Martin Gilbert, due to a faster race lap. This gave Peter Fowler the Heavyweight title with Daran Pazzaglia claiming second, clear of Peter Realf and Kieran Rochell. Shaun Jobson claimed the Heavyweight Plus title by one point from Richard Westlake, with Martin Stone in third.
With all the championships so close in this year's winter series, it will be interesting to see who carries their form into the summer series, which starts on the 19th April at Sutton.
COVKARTSPORT Winter Series Round 2
Sunday 22nd February 2009
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Dry but slightly windy conditions greeted the drivers at the second round of the winter series at Ancaster, with James Taylor, Chris Steele and Daran Pazzaglia all attending in an attempt to keep their championship leads.
Juniors
With no sign of Harrison Jones, who finished the first round in second, the question to be answered at Ancaster was who would challenge Chris Steele at the top of the championship. In qualifying, Jack Macauley took a brilliant pole position, to copy his pole from Sutton. Second and third on the grid went to series newcomers Jack Wallace and Sam Randon. Championship leader Chris qualified down in fifth after a poor qualifying session.
As the race started, Jack Macauley got away from the line poorly and lost positions to Jack Wallace and Sam but by the end of the first lap, a brilliant recovery had started as he moved back into second. A super second lap saw him take the lead and leave Sam and Jack Wallace behind to battle for second. From here, Jack Macauley controlled the gap to take his first victory in COVKARTSPORT. Second went to the debutante Sam Randon, who also took fastest lap, after he got the better of Jack Wallace in an intense battle, which lasted the entire race. Fourth went to Mark Wiley-Mackey to keep him in contention for winter series title going into the final round, being as he is five points back. Chris managed to come home just behind Mark in fifth with Kaine Boswell taking sixth. As the series heads to the final winter round, Jack Macauley leads the title race by four points over Chris Steele, who will want to banish memories of this round with a good finish at Stretton.
Lightweights
A large field arrived for the lightweight class to see if anyone could catch James Taylor and Ash Carter at the top of the table. In the first qualifying session, Adam Wheeldon scored a brilliant pole position to follow on the form he showed at Sutton, where he finished third. This was two and a half tenths off his closest rival, Ash Carter, while the next three were all covered by one tenth. Championship leader James had a poor qualifying session and finished down in seventh position. In the second qualifying session, Michael Weygang put in a super lap time to take the fastest lap from series returnee Graham Wallace. Stuart Corr, John Stanton and Stuart Lindsay followed with Dermot Lehane having a poor session after a successful race at Sutton.
In race one, Adam lead from pole to finish, taking a clear win from Graham, who in turn got the better of an early race battle with John Stanton for second. John got the better of David Whitehouse through turn two on the first lap and kept that position, even after a later challenge by David during the middle to end of the race. James Taylor came home just behind in fifth after winning an early battle with Krzysztof Bednarski, who finished sixth, the same result has he got in round one.
Race two saw a close battle all the way to the end. Michael Weygang made a brilliant start to lead from Ash, with Stuart Lindsay working his way through to third. The battle between these three drivers lasted the rest of the fifteen minutes with lap times being swapped. About half way through the race, Stuart made a move on Ash to take second and along with that, fastest lap. The two of them pushed Michael all the way to the line but were unable to pass and this let Michael take his first victory. Fastest lap finally went to Ash Carter, who stormed round the final tour to nip it from the feet of Stuart. Stuart Corr put in a strong drive to take fourth with other drives of notice being from Chris Angus, who qualified in eighth, and a spin early in the race put pay to his chances of victory. From here, he made a great drive to move back through the field to just get the better of Bob Moss for fifth place near the end of the race and take his best position since joining COVKARTSPORT at the end of last season.
In the overall standings, Adam Wheeldon took the victory due to a faster lap than Michael, took second overall. Graham Wallace took third on his series return. This moves Adam to within one point of Ash in the championship with James Taylor just two points further back. Seven points cover the first seven drivers in this close title race.
Heavyweight
One race was the order of the day in the heavyweight class after eleven drivers turned up to race. Daran Pazzaglia was looking to keep up his form from Sutton and looked good while qualifying in second position while Peter Fowler also kept up his good form by setting the third fastest time. Pole position went to former junior COVKARTSPORT racer Kieran Rochell by a clear half a second, with series organiser Nick Stanley taking eleventh on his return to racing after some time out.
At the start, a mix up at the first corner meant that Daran dropped down the field, which allowed Peter to challenge Kieran. They battled for many laps with the lead changing nearly every time they crossed the line. The watching crowd lost count of how many times they swapped positions. Approximately halfway through the race, the two leaders hit the back markers and as they raced through, Peter Fowler spun and lost time to Kieran but lucky for him, no position. Meanwhile, Daran had moved himself back up to fourth just behind Peter Realf, who had taken advantage of the first lap shunt to take third, and this is how it stayed. Club President Nick Stanley returned to racing after a 3-year break by qualifying in last place and starting at the very back of the grid just in front of Shaun Jobson. The pair had an excellent race-long battle with Nick working his way through to an excellent fifth place and Shaun 6th, after holding off four karts in the final few laps. Richard Westlake took a good seventh place at the chequered flag.
This gives Peter Fowler a two-point lead over Daran going to the final round with Peter Realf a further point back. Shaun Jobson�s poor qualifying left him just too much to do in the race and he must now rely upon mistakes from his rivals to take the title.COVKARTSPORT Winter Series Round 1
Sunday 18th January 2009
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With mixed weather conditions at the Sutton circuit, similar to the final round of 2008, the first round of the 2009 winter series was always to be a close affair in all three classes and has provided us with a first look into, what should be, a close and exciting season.
Juniors:
Low numbers arrived for the first round of the junior winter series, as five drivers signed on, with a mixture of experience and novices in the field. The big names of last year not attending included overall champion of 2008, Ashley Carter, who had graduated up to the lightweight class. In the 15 minute qualifying session, each driver pushed hard on a slightly damp track with a few spins and mistakes made. The two main contenders showing skills here were Chris Steele and Jack Macaulay. Both drivers attacked the conditions and the pole position went to Jack, four tenths of a second clear of Chris with Harrison Jones taking third on his debut. As the race came round, the track was beginning to dry due to no further rain and other track action, with all drivers producing times about five seconds quicker than qualifying. All drivers made a decent start on the still slightly damp track, with Chris and Jack having a good battle for the lead until Chris pulled clear of Jack and controlled the pace. Near the start of the race, there was a close moment between Kaine Boswell and Jack, who had dropped behind Harrison. Kaine, trying to pass Jack in turn one, locked his brakes and there was a few nudges for a few corners until Jack managed to pull clear. From here, Chris kept his lead to take the first victory of 2009 and ten points. Second across the line was Harrison but he misses out on second overall due to Jack taking the points for fastest lap and pole position. Fourth overall goes to Mark Wiley-Mackey after a good drive from a poor qualifying position. Fifth overall and seven championship points goes to Kaine Boswell.
Lightweights:
Due to the larger numbers in the lightweight class, two qualifying sessions and two races were the order of the day. Big names to watch in this class were overall and junior champion of 2008, Ash Carter, 4th in 2008 Lightweights James Taylor, Co-championship organiser Stuart Lindsay and 2008 lightweight plus champion John Stanton. Qualifying was tough for all drivers in the slippery conditions but the star names all shined with Ash taking pole on his lightweight debut and James taking the second race pole in the drier of the two sessions. Dermot Lehane, David Whitehouse and Stuart Lindsay took second, third and fourth for race one with the same positions for race two taken by Gary Jones, John Stanton and Adam Wheeldon. As race one came round, the track was drying lap after lap but still damp in places. Ashley and Dermot made clean getaways from the grid to pull out an immediate lead over David in third and Stuart Lindsay and Corr battling over fourth. For the first seven laps, Ashley and Dermot were not split by more than a second or two, where one mistake could spell the loss of the lead but then Ash broke Dermot�s spirit with a number of fast laps. At this same time, David broke away from the chasing group and closed Dermot down by a little bit each lap. By the last lap, they were right together when Dermot made a mistake into turn one. This allowed David to switch back on the next corner but produced him on the outside and on the wetter line in turn three. This allowed Dermot to take a determined second and David finishing in third. Stuart Corr got the better of his namesake Lindsay in the battle for fourth with Stuart Lindsay dropping to ninth due to a miss fire on his kart, which meant he had to pit and change kart.
In race two, the main story was the titanic battle between John Stanton and Gary Jones. They were glued together for the whole race with a little bumping causing a few gaps, which were still closed due to traffic or mistakes. They were even kept together when Adam Wheeldon worked his way through, from fourth on the grid, to take a super second place. In the end, John got the better on Gary for third and the experience of Bob Moss showed to score seven points in tricky conditions. In front of all of these, James Taylor started on pole, controlled some early pressure from Adam, John and Gary and was able to pull away to take a perfect victory with fastest lap. This left James on the same score as Ash for the day but taking the victory due to the faster lap time. Would this have happen if track conditions had been the same all the way through the day, we�ll never know. Third overall went to Adam Wheeldon with Co-championship organiser Stuart Lindsay ending the day 18th with a lot of work to do over the next two rounds to move back into contention.
Heavyweights:
The 2009 heavyweight season started by showing us how competitive it will be this year with every driver in with a chance. In the first qualifying session, 2008 Heavyweight plus champion Shaun Jobson took a strong first, clear of 2008 Novice champion Martin Stone and David Bickley. The second pole of the day was taken by 2008 third placed Daran Pazzaglia followed by Peter Callington and co-coordinator Peter Realf. With these two grids, the whole of COVKARTSPORT knew they were in for two great races. With the grid formed for race one, Shaun Jobson led the field away from the lights. For the first few laps, a great battle between Shaun, Peter and David was the undoing of the group as Peter Fowler worked his way through within the first few laps and then built a lead and was never headed to take the first heavyweight win of 2009. The rest of the field tried to keep up but just could not close the gap, even through the traffic. The rest of the field held position with Shaun and Peter, second and third.
Race two was lead from start to finish by Daran Pazzaglia with a confident drive. Martin Stone started second but had a poor race dropping down to fifth in the race, which leaves him ninth in the championship. This left Peter Realf to fight off the attention of Chris Hone to take the runner-ups spot. After nine laps of pressure, Chris made his move but Peter shut the door with little contact but two laps later, Chris made his move and made it stick. This lasted for two laps and then back came Peter with a nice move up the inside of Chris. Of course the racers instinct was raging inside both drivers and as Chris made another bid for second place at the hairpin and missed his braking points, sliding wide into Peter, with Peter showing his disgust, with a wave of the hand. Peter came round on the final lap with second place in his hands and Chris is third. Allan Marley made a good race of things, moving up to fourth from seventh on the grid. This meant that overall leader is Daran Pazzaglia with second and third going to Peter Fowler and Shaun Jobson. Chris Hone took fastest lap in that race which meant he got the bonus point to move him to equal on points with Peter Realf�..This could be a battle to watch.
The second round is on February 22nd (venue TBC) with Daran, James and Chris looking to keep and extend their championship leads and the rest of the field trying to catch up.
