The 2010 MSA British Cadet Championship run by Formula Kart Stars reached its half way point at Glan Y Gors with rounds five and six of the season. Saturday’s fifth round took place under glorious sunny skies with the superb 1100 metre circuit dwarfed by the rugged North Wales scenery so prevalent in the county of Denbighshire that nestles in the foothills of Snowdonia.

With injuries ruling out several drivers, including championship contender Max Vaughan who hurt his thumb in a recent accident, 45 contenders lined up for the first part of the weekend doubleheader, 44 of them trying to stop points leader Tom Harvey from taking his fourth consecutive final victory and his first of 2010 on home soil.

Despite its challenging nature and surrounding beauty, Glan Y Gors’ rather remote location makes it an occasional as opposed to a regular haunt for many drivers. Therefore not all of the usual frontrunners had the large number of testing miles and data under their belts as usual, which in turn paved the way for some of the less heralded contenders to really make their mark.

First to shine in timed qualifying was Focus Motorsport’s Luke Barker who topped the first group with a time of 49.60-seconds, beating newly crowned O Plate winner Lando Norris, points leader Harvey and Rory Cuff in the process. Unusually for qualifying, many of the quick times were set in the middle of the session with only Ross Gunn, fifth fastest with a best time of 49.85-seconds, making an impression in the closing minutes.

Elsewhere in the first group, Kyle Hornby whose SAS Motorsport team does have an intricate knowledge of Glan Y Gors put in one of his best showings of the season to date with seventh fastest time while Cameron Roberts (8^th) and Enaam Ahmed (9^th) were also a little further up the charts than they might have expected to be.

At the other end of the scale James Kellett, in his first race of the season as an independent runner following a split with the Zip Young Guns equipe, was back in 14^th with Ryan Anderton, making his first appearance on a Zip chassis for the Fusion team, two places further back.

Barker’s dreams of taking overall pole position unfortunately didn’t last all the way through the second qualifying group as Nathan Aston went a tenth quicker, stopping the clocks in a time of 49.50-seconds in the final two minutes. Wright driver Daniel Ticktum also beat Barker’s time with a 49.54-second effort but Barker would still be assured of one pole position in his heats as nobody else went quicker, leaving him third overall.

Third in group two And fourth overall was Aston’s Fusion teammate Darius Karbaley with Connor Jupp and Philip Rawson rounding out the top five in group two, sixth and seventh fastest overall.

As in group one there were a good few surprises with Shanaka Clay sixth in his RL Race Team kart, Jamie Caroline seventh for Eclipse Motorsport and newly crowned Welsh Champion Harry Williams a promising twelfth. Likewise there were several disappointments, Santino Ferrucci on his first outing for M Sport ninth fastest, TJ Nelson eleventh and Callum Ilott only 19^th.

Aston’s qualifying prowess put him on pole for the opening twelve minute heat with Ticktum alongside him and Jupp and Norris on row two but even though the close proximity of the first right hander at Club Corner to the start line gave the outside row starters a better chance than usual of taking the lead Aston managed to keep in front.

Ticktum ran behind Aston’s kart for the opening lap but then became the first (of many) victims of the huge Dragon Straight slipstream effect when he was muscled wide going into turn one on lap two and lost several places as Jupp, Norris and fifth place starter Rory Cuff drafted by. These four proceeded to break clear of the field with Jupp taking the helm from Aston on lap five of an eventual 16.

However the Eclipse Motorsport driver couldn’t shake the trio behind him and for much of the second half of the race Aston looked primed to take yet another potential win away from Jupp. Having led numerous times during the opening four rounds Jupp had but a single heat win to show for his efforts until now but for once he was able to successfully repel a last lap onslaught to take the chequered flag eight hundredths of a second clear of Aston with Norris and Cuff flashing across the line less than two kart lengths behind in a grandstand blanket finish.

Ferrucci finished a distant fifth after a long battle with Kart Tek teammates Gunn and Greg McKenzie, the Wright of Harrison Newey and Thanassi Barnicoat with Ticktum only tenth after coming off worse in several tussles.

Barker was rewarded for his qualifying efforts with the first pole position of his FKS career in heat two but he soon found to his cost that it doesn’t pay to be cautious on the opening lap as he was swamped and then shovelled wide in the infield portion of the track, falling to tenth before the first tour was complete.

From the second row of the grid Harvey passed outside poleman Karbaley to take the early lead although Harvey probably had counted on an inspired charge from Jupp’s teammate Caroline, who moved to the head of a three kart train at the front of the pack leaving Harvey to fend off Karbaley for second. However some good teamwork got Harvey and Karbaley back ahead of their less experienced rival and even though he was conceding a good deal of Glan Y Gors experience to ex-SAS Motorsport driver Karbaley, Harvey was able to stay ahead until the finish, Karbaley just fourteen hundredths behind.

Caroline finished a rather lonely third after losing a lot of momentum when he was passed by the Fusion freight-train but he was still well ahead of a mad scramble for fourth, which lasted most of the race and left one or two people feeling a little hard done by when the flag finally fell.

From 17th on the grid Kellett had charged up the order in the early laps and even when faced with the trio of Rawson, Nelson and Zip’s Alfie Brown ahead of him he wasted little time in moving to the head of a train of karts that also included Ilott but sadly not Barker who retired after five laps after an incident that also involved Hornby, new SAS Motorsport recruit Charlie Barlow and S Plate holder Dean McDonald, who, like Anderton, was running with Fusion graphics for the first time this weekend.

But Kellett couldn’t shake the chasing pack and with five laps to go Rawson bustled through to claim fourth with Kellett finding himself on the grass and plummeting down the order. On the final lap Cameron Roberts grabbed a seasons-best fifth with Josh Smith taking his best ever FKS finish with sixth. Brown too put in one of his best performances of the year to take seventh with Ilott eighth and Lewis Taylor coming through to pass Nelson in the closing stages for an equally impressive ninth. After a fine drive Kellett was a smouldering 13th.

Aston and Barker shared the front row for the third heat but while Aston was able to grab the lead Barker once again found himself bustled down the order during the frantic first few corners. Norris and Cuff, from rows two and three respectively, moved into second and third respectively and, with Aston still leading, began a three-kart breakaway.

Norris seized the opportunity to pass Aston for the lead going into Spoon Corner on lap seven and the pint-sized Mick Barrett Racing driver held the place for the remaining nine and a half laps. Just as Aston was sizing up a last lap move on the leader Cuff dived to his inside on the run down the hill towards Carousel to grab second, giving Norris a few vital kart lengths.

His aggression on the first lap may need working on but once the racing got going nobody could doubt Barker’s pace as he recovered from his poor opening circuit to hold off a determined and sustained charge from Gunn to finish fourth, more than five seconds behind the top three.

A further seven seconds down the road Caroline headed home a huge train of almost a dozen karts in sixth position with heat two combatants Rawson and Kellett next in line ahead of Brown, Hornby, Anderton, Barlow, Newey, East Anglian champ James Manning, Martin, Owen Griffiths, the Dubai based Cyrus Engineer and Jack Connolly.

Unfortunately, once the karts had returned to parc ferme there were some angry scenes between Kellett and Rawson that resulted in Kellett’s exclusion from the day.

There was a first FKS pole for Ticktum in the fourth and final heat and, like Barker, Ticktum fell victim to aggressive trio Karbaley, Harvey and Jupp. All three took their turn at the front before Harvey finally established himself with another aggressive move on Jupp on lap ten that resulted in Jupp falling behind the closely Ferrucci and McKenzie.

Ferrucci held on to the bumpers of his former teammates for several laps before fading leaving it as a straight fight between Harvey and Karbaley for the second time in three heats. Harvey looked like making it two wins to nil in their personal rivalry until leaving the door slightly ajar going into the final corner. Contact was made as Karbaley forced his nose to the inside and the two exited the final corner side by side with Karbaley’s inside line proving decisive as he nosed ahead by seven hundredths. One all.

Ferrucci completed the top three, three seconds behind the leaders but more than a second up on Jupp. McKenzie was fifth on the road but was later excluded for having a wrong number on his scrutineering card, which promoted Smith to fifth, one place better than his heat one showing and doing more than enough to put him straight into his first ever British Championship A Final.

Ticktum lost out to Smith on the final lap and was eventually classified sixth with Barnicoat, Ilott and Welsh Champ Williams ninth. Harry was another driver enjoying the best day of his season so far, the success that Harvey earned whilst wearing the C-Plate obviously rubbing off a little.

At the other end of the luck spectrum, both Nelson and Macdonald sealed their fates in the B Final with early (unrelated) retirements.

With Kellett’s absence from the grid, 17 karts lined up to try and secure the four qualifying places into the main event with Barlow sharing the front row with Ellis Hanks. Nelson started from the second row with Macdonald on row four and McKenzie right at the back.

It soon became clear that heavy hitters Nelson, MacDonald and McKenzie weren’t going to have things all their own way in the 16-lap race as Hanks, driving an Arrow chassis under the guidance of noted GYG experts Luke Hughes and his dad, finally got into his stride after two early race spins in his heats masked his true pace.

For a brief while Nelson headed the field as the front four drew clear. MacDonald and McKenzie sat behind, seemingly content to let Nelson lead but Hanks in fourth was having none of it and set about moving from the back of the queue to the front. Taking less than two laps to dispatch all three of his more favoured rivals, Hanks was in no mood to let a race victory go begging. Perhaps aware of this McKenzie slotted into second and pushed Hanks along as Nelson and MacDonald suddenly found themselves swamped by Barlow, Hornby and Jonathan Jones.

Sensing that some big scalps were there for the taking Jones and Hornby moved ahead of Nelson and MacDonald as the race entered its closing stages with MacDonald really getting hung out to dry at the start of the final lap, dropping from third to seventh in one go, as Jones took third. Nelson also got within a lap of qualification until Hornby grabbed fourth and pushed Nelson down to fifth, one place shy of his required target.

Barlow and MacDonald were next up with Jordan Collard winning a spirited six-kart battle for eighth.

Of the 26 drivers who automatically qualified for the A Final Harvey and Karbaley were the best placed on row one, perfectly poised for the deciding bout in the day-long scrap. Norris and Jupp were on row two with Aston and Cuff next up. Smith started in exalted company on row five with Williams easily qualifying in 18^th and qualifying hero Barker just scraping in automatically in 25^th.

Poleman Harvey led the field through the first turn without incident although from the outside of row two Jupp got a tremendous slingshot down the Dragon Straight and was able to dive up the inside of Harvey going into Spoon corner. Behind the new leader, an equally inspired start from his Eclipse teammate Caroline saw the ex-Honda man take second away from Karbaley a lap later as Harvey found himself bundled down to seventh.

However the Eclipse 1-2 didn’t last long as Aston, who had made a quiet start, grabbed second on lap seven and, with Karbaley an the rest slowly fading away, set off his pursuit of Jupp. As the laps wore on Aston sat in Jupp’s slipstream, working with the leader to ensure that Karbaley and the recovering Harvey, weren’t an imminent threat.

As they entered the 19^th and final lap Aston had yet to make his move and after several near misses Jupp was now in his best position yet to break his victory duck. But Aston wasn’t done yet and he dived to the inside as they cannoned down the hill towards the Carousel. Jupp held his nerve on the outside and the two ran line astern through the hill up towards turns six and seven and the final snaking run down the hill towards the last corner and the chequered flag.

Just inches apart the two leaders ran side by side through the ‘right-left-right; section at Compression Corner and the Devils Elbow with Aston emerging for the short drop down to Paddock on the inside line. Rather than get rattled Jupp calmly allowed Aston to defend, knowing that by slingshotting up the inside as they came off the corner he would have the momentum. It worked a treat and Jupp took the chequered flag just seven hundredths ahead of Aston to finally claim the win that he had been threatening all year.

Aston, who wasn’t too disappointed after beating Jupp on the final lap to win the opening round at Rowrah, led home his teammates Harvey and Karbaley by half a second. Their third straight head to head scrap was resolved in Harvey’s favour, despite a frantic last effort from Karbaley.

Three seconds behind the top quartet, Cuff and Ferrucci both disposed of Norris in the last two laps to take fifth and sixth. Three seconds behind the O Plate holder in eighth, Rawson led another line of karts across the line with Gunn and Ilott completing the top ten.

Further down the order Barker gained a dozen places to finish 13^th, right in the middle of a pack of karts that also included Caroline (15^th) and Smith (16^th).

In a race with no retirements, any off-course excursion was harshly punished as Newey, Clay, Manning and Enaam Ahmed all discovered when they were involved in a collision on the second lap and were left to occupy the final four finishing positions.