EasyKart UK - Round 5 - Rye House

McCullough on a mission

I’m not well-read enough to know the origin of the phrase ‘cometh the hour, cometh the man’. Whether its origins lie in the bible, Shakespeare, poetry or a novel is unclear - but I do know that it is much beloved of sports writers because it is so apposite for describing crucial moments during major events.

Intriguingly, there is an English proverb 'opportunity makes the man', although originally in the fourteenth century it was 'makes the thief'. Either would perfectly describe the manner in which Kieran McCullough is stealing up on Barnaby Pittingale and William Smith in the Heavy class.

The early, runaway points leaders are rapidly being caught by the lanky Londoner, who has now matched Pittingale’s points score in the last two rounds and taken two wins from three races.

To be fair to Pittingale, he was far from race-fit – suffering from a combination of tonsillitis, a viral infection and a chest infection. After leaving the circuit on Saturday feeling too ill to test, the 2007 World Finals winner bounced back on race day to take pole position for the pre-final. However, a snapped chain just eight laps in ensured that he would start the main final near the back of the twenty six-strong grid. McCullough took the win from fellow title-rival Smith.

Tyre choice would play a crucial role in the final proper. Rain was falling as the karts took the start, but some drivers had gambled on it stopping and the track’s quick-drying nature played into their hands. McCullough and Pittingale had opted for dry tyres, whilst Smith had gone for wets. Using their vast Club 100 experience [of racing in the wet on slicks], McCullough held his lead, whilst Pittingale scythed up the order. By lap five, he’d gone from 22nd to 3rd and was still very much on the move. As the track continued to dry, so Smith increasingly began to resemble King Canute trying to command the waves. ‘Sir’ Tim Hill removed 2nd from him four laps in and set off after McCullough. Behind him, battles raged throughout the order as different set-ups came on or went off. Pittingale harried Hill for several laps and found the door firmly shut, but eventually forced an error and slipped through for 2nd. It was too late to give McCullough anything to worry about, as he admitted saying “Kieran had already gone.” Indeed, McCullough was over ten seconds ahead. Post-race he commented, “At one point, I looked over my shoulder and could see anybody, so I twisted round further in my seat and the guys [chasing me] weren’t even on the straight. I won by an absolute mile.” Hill completed the podium and drew the praise of Pittingale, who sportingly acknowledged that the series’ ‘knight’ was his tip for the most-improved driver of the season. Lewis Shelley claimed fifth [behind Jay Shepherd] and set the new class lap-record - 37.350 seconds – four tenths quicker than Edward Cockill’s 2008 best time.

With McCullough now just seven points shy of Smith in the Championship table, and Pittingale just a further twenty five ahead, he might well believe that ‘the hour cometh, and now is’ to quote John 4:23.

Similar to its Heavy counterpart, the Light category is finely poised between Terry Langley, Owen Jenman and Adrian Crockett. After winning the opening two rounds, Langley then suffered a major wobble at Teesside and lost a significant number of points to Jenman, who finished second at the Middlesborough track, whilst Crockett’s win at Clay Pigeon the month before, ensured that he maintained the pressure on the leading duo. Jenman drew first blood of the day, leading Langley home in the pre-final with Crockett shadowing them in third. Sam Massey took fourth to underline that he cannot be ruled out of the Championship chase either. The wily Langley used the pre-final to follow Jenman and get some set-up data for the final. He said, “I followed Owen for most of the race and it was a good thing to do. I could see where he was quicker, or I was at each point of the circuit. We altered the kart for the main final to compensate for where he had the better speed and in the main final, the thing just flew!”

From the start, Langley got the jump on pole-sitter Jenman, with Crockett and Massey going with him. The reigning champion wasted little time in opening a cushion over his pursuers, reporting later that his pace surprised even him, “I looked down at my Alfano and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I’d got a ridiculous time and the other laps were consistent too.”

From there, he built a lead of nearly four seconds, leaving Crockett, Massey and Jenman to duke it out behind him. It was stalemate between them until the 14th lap, when Sam saw a gap and wriggled through. He managed to put four tenths of daylight between himself and Adrian, but found he couldn’t match Terry’s blistering pace. Still, he had enough of a tiger in his tank to secure his first and long overdue podium. “I led at Whilton Mill [the opening round of the championship] but had a problem [and finished an eventual 6th]. I’ve been getting better with each round since, so I’m hoping to do just as well, if not better at Rowrah now“, he said. Crockett and Jenman put in a lot of hard yakka to round out the top four and make sure that the title fight continues in earnest.

Wet? Dry? Wet? Dry? Wet? Dry? The discussions up and down the Junior dummy grid were more reminiscent of boffins in a Pampers research lab’ than tyre choice for a kart race. The weather was playing havoc with the drivers’ decisions, but Brad Fairhurst’s proved to be spot on. “We don’t normally get it right in the wet,” his dad admitted with a chuckle after Brad had taken a superb victory.

“The weather seemed to change every five minutes. We arrived on the dummy grid with slicks but opted for wets at the last minute but still with the dry set-up“, Brad explained. It proved to be the perfect option. As the field charged into Stadium Bend for the first time, Fairhurst drove round the outside of pole-sitter Patrick Lay and into the lead. William Lampitt – benefiting from a full wet set-up – retook the advantage just over a lap later. As the water again began to reveal increasingly dry tarmacadam, Fairhurst’s lower pressures gave his tyres more bite and he began to ease away.

Conversely, Lampitt began to struggle but battled gamely with Lay. As they did, Thomas Grainger - recovering from the opening laps dramas that had dropped him to seventh – was edging ever closer. At three quarter distance, Lay successfully made his move, leaving Lampitt to fend off the far quicker Grainger. Meanwhile, Fairhurst had got his head down opened an impressive nine seconds plus margin over the rest. With three laps remaining, Grainger finally cleared Lampitt and began to bear down on Lay. On the last lap, the two were locked together, but Thomas hadn’t realised that he had just a handful of corners to go for the higher podium step. “I was pushing Patrick hard, we came onto the straight and I looked up and saw the flag waving and thought, ‘Oh!’” he explained. He also bagged another prize for his exploits, the Karting Magazine Driver of the Day Award, for what Easykart promoter John Vigor said was “the way in which he dealt with the adverse weather conditions. He’s been banging on the door for some time now and his performance at Rye might just be the spark for him to take his first win at one of the remaining [three] rounds.”

It is a mark of James DeHavillande’s talent and his team’s preparation that his worst finish so far, was third place at Llandow. Since then he has won every final – an astonishing record – and on the evidence of his Rye House performance, it appears he has no intention of stopping.

James DeHavillande extended his series lead to twenty five points, but cannot relax just yet as his Cadet rivals proved that they remain worthy adversaries. The conditions for the main final went from dry to soaking just minutes after the start. DeHavillande used his considerable experience to great effect and splashed off into the distance. With the entire field on slicks, spins and trips into the scenery were inevitable. Ryan Anderton had climbed from 8th to 2nd but span, forcing William Stowell to take avoiding action and lost vital time as he recovered onto the track. Profiting from this was debutant Harrison Newey [son of Red Bull design genius, Adrian] who nipped through the confusion to take second place. Once he’d got back on track, Stowell set about reeling Harrison and closed the gap to a few tenths but ran out of laps to challenge the impressive newcomer.

In the pits, DeHavillande’s crew suffered heart-in-mouth anxiety as James pounded round at such a rate, that his mechanic and driver coach, Martin James was frantically signaling for his young charge to slow down. Whether he chose to ignore them or couldn’t see through the spray, James’ final tour was over a second faster than most of those still running.

Asked if his fourth victory out of five was becoming boring, he beamed “Winning never gets boring. You can never have too many wins. This latest one completes another fantastic weekend.”

Results

Easykart Heavy

1st: Kieran McCullough
2nd: Barnaby Pittingale
3rd: Tim Hill
4th: Jay Shepherd
5th: Lewis Shelley
6th: Christopher Wright

Easykart Light

1st: Terry Langley
2nd: Sam Massey
3rd: Adrian Crockett
4th: Owen Jenman
5th: Ben King
6th: Ben Yeomans

Easykart Junior

1st: Brad Fairhurst
2nd: Patrick Lay
3rd: Thomas Grainger
4th: Christopher Waldock
5th: William Lampitt
6th: Tiernay Oliver

Easykart Cadet

1st: James De Havillande
2nd: Harris Newey
3rd: William Stowell
4th: Ronan McKenzie
5th: Jordan Sanders
6th: Josh Grimston

Karting Magazine Driver of the Day: Thomas Grainger