BRINGING THE FUN BACK INTO RACING
CHECKERS to Wreckers
Staines Speedster, Adrian Blackwell,
dominated a very wet Northampton
Stoxkart meeting to claim a clean sweep
hat trick of victories, and in doing so take
a career first feature race win.
The Heathrow BA IT worker rolled off
eighteenth at the start of the meeting
Final and by the end of the first lap was
up to eleventh place having passed
fellow red-top stars Paul Godfrey and
Danny Nunn. A lap later he was up to
fourth and subsequently passed David
Sewell, then leader Andrew Yull on lap
four, to take the lead. Moments later the
only caution flag of the race flew for a
pair of stranded cars on the exit of turn
four.
Blackwell headed the field for the singlefile restart with Carl Heighes, who has
been enjoying a purple patch of form
lately, right on his tail. As the pace car
peeled off Blackwell pulled enough of a
gap on Heighes to prevent an attack in to
turn one and with a clear track ahead he
pulled away from the field. Into the
second half of the race Blackwell started
to lap some of the tail-enders, and he
crossed the line to take the chequered
flag some nine seconds ahead of runnerup Paul Higgins.
Driver Quotes:
"Wow! What a meeting, I can’t believe
what we’ve just done. I crossed the line
to win the first heat and thought "that’s
made the day whatever happens now".
To win the second heat and then my first
ever final as well for a clean-sweep is
unbelievable."
Adrian Blackwell then had a complete
reversal of fortunes on the following
week at Birmingham Wheels Raceway.
He completed just a lap and a quarter
before being wrecked for the night with
extensive damage.
24
Hopes were running high for the Adrian
Blackwell Motor Sports team after the
euphoria of triple victories at the
previous Northampton meeting, but the
team came crashing back to earth with a
bump, quite literally, in a turn one pileup. Starting from nineteenth on the grid
for the opening heat Blackwell gained
four places on the first lap. However,
entering turn one for the second time
progress came to an abrupt halt.
Attempting to dive up the inside for
another place, Blackwell was caught
from the side and behind by a gaggle of
tangling karts and he has just a
passenger from that point onwards. The
kart bounced up in the air while others
clashed underneath him, and a hard
landing broke the left-front steering
mount, bent the rear axle, and threw the
chain from the drive sprocket. Several
karts continued to push Blackwell
sideways and he eventually came to a
rest halfway round the bend.
Post-race inspection revealed too much
damage to fix in the limited time between
races so the team loaded up and headed
for home to make a start on repairs.
Driver Quotes:
"That was a wild ride there!
"This just shows what an up and down
sport racing is. Nothing could go wrong
last time out in the rain, this time it all
went to pot from the off. Keith did a great
job of fixing enough of it so we could get
it back in the hauler. He was like a demon
stripping it down and assessing it
properly as soon as we got home,
despite the late hour. I think it looks
worse than it is, so we should be ready
for the next outing!
Adrian Blackwell
Tel: 0844 840 8104