Sam Marsh pondered long and hard about whether or not to even attend the final two rounds of the 2011 Formula Kart Stars Junior Rotax championship at Ellough Park.

On one hand he would be going to the home circuit of his RL Racing Department team where he won in Mini Max at the end of the 2010 season but on the other hand he felt that his disqualification from Sunday’s final at Whilton Mill, which handed James Singleton the 2011 championship was unjust.

Eventually Marsh elected to race even though he had gone from a comfortable second in the standings to a somewhat distant fourth behind newly crowned champ Singleton, who was absent from the weekend, Ryan Norris and George Williams. It was a decision that would pay off handsomely for Marsh who dominated proceedings from the moment the grid gate opened for timed qualifying until the chequered flag fell at the end of the final.

Marsh’s obliteration of the rest of the 21-kart field began in qualifying, where he beat Adam Glear to pole position by 0.04-seconds with his returning RL Racing Department teammate Nick Arthur third and Luke Whitworth in fourth. Marsh’s rivals for second in the championship fared less well with Norris only sixth fastest in his TMR Development kart and Williams tenth in his Dan Holland Racing machine.

Chaos engulfed the majority of the field in the opening stages of the first 20-lap heat with Norris and the Vital Motorsport kart of Bobby Thompson coming to grief on the run out of turn one . Arthur got the jump on Glear, who was turned around and resumed in last place, only just managing to avoid the aftermath of the Norris/Thompson shunt as he regained the circuit.

As Marsh led worse was to follow on lap three when several karts came together in the middle of the pack coming through turn nine. The Delta Karting machine of Steven Handford vaulted over the top of Josh Gray’s kart, which brought out the red flags as Gray was attended to for a painful hand and shoulder.

Through all this Marsh remained calm and took the single file restart without any difficulties as more carnage broke out behind him when Macaulay Austin, who was awarded the inaugural Dannie Pennell trophy during the day, was punted out of fifth place in turn one, stacking up the field and causing terminal damage to the kart of Shaun Arnold. A lap later Sam Brabham and James Williams came together coming out of turn seven and with Handford also retiring there were just 13 karts remaining with half the race still to run.

None of this mattered to Marsh, who led home Arthur by 0.6-seconds to take the win with everyone else, led by Zubair Hoque, more than six seconds behind.

Heat two was a virtual repeat of the opening encounter, minus a lot of the crashing as Marsh calmly led from start to finish with Arthur, who was starting to struggle fitness wise on his return from injury, giving chase. Marsh ran out the winner by 1.57-seconds over Arthur with Glear, Jessica Hawkins and Norris squabbling over third. Gray was able to take the start after his trip to the ambulance but his arm only allowed him to complete eleven laps.

At 18-minutes plus a lap the final would be the longest and most gruelling race of the year, running to an energy sapping 26 laps but by the end of it Marsh had hardly broken a sweat. Getting through the first corner cleanly Marsh established an early advantage over Arthur, Hawkins and Glear and as that trio began a race long battle Marsh simply pulled away.

When the chequered flag fell Marsh was five seconds in front of the rest of the field and was able to savour his first final win of the year. Behind him Arthur’s body finally gave up the ghost and after a stubborn defence he had to concede second to Hawkins with Glear completing the podium. Arthur crossed the line fourth but was in a state of exhaustion afterwards and required medical treatment. Behind them Thompson, Williams, Norris and Hoque were next with Luke Whitworth recovering from a lap one excursion to take ninth.