Championship commentator, Henry Beaudette muses on the season opener at Kimbolton

Hello and welcome to my column, which I’ll pen after every race weekend, or at least as soon as my head stops spinning from trying to remember 150-odd different drivers names and numbers.

This is my first year as your regular series commentator and after Kimbolton I want to ask Carolynn if can I sign up for 2008 already because the racing was excellent. I think I deafened Ian from Supersport, who had the misfortune to share the commentary booth with me all weekend, but to be fair to him he took it in good humour and kept the gaffer-tape in his bag. Personally I blame the drivers for creating such exciting racing!

I’ll get to the racing itself in a bit, but I’d like to start with the circuit and the folks at Kimbolton, none of whom I’d met before Saturday morning but who all went out of their way to make me feel welcome all weekend. I’m sure many of you will agree that the event was first class and that the circuit staff and the officials from the Hunts Kart Club were spot on. Good luck to them.

I didn’t realise that the track operates just once a month and that there is no day-to-day activity there. To do what they do with no corporate business backing them up is remarkable. I also like the fact that they celebrate the history of the site, but then again I’m a sad history nut. Seriously though, the next time you are there take a minute to check out the display in the club house and learn a little about the people whose sacrifices enabled us to live like we do.

The track itself had a nice classic look to it, not billiard table smooth with some nasty looking kerbs to spice things up. I also liked the whole corn field gravel trap look, which proved to be very effective on a couple of occasions. It’s a pity that the local residents don’t share my enthusiasm for karting but I think that if more of them took the time to actually come along and have a look for themselves instead of tending to their magnolias they would be pleasantly surprised to see so many young people actually doing something constructive with their lives. Oh well, we live in hope.

Great weather, friendly staff and a tough circuit aside, this championship is all about the drivers, and to their credit they showed why on the weekend with some cracking racing. OK, so there were a few occasions when the red mist came down but after watching some of the Super 1 antics at Llandow recently I don’t think I saw one malicious incident all weekend.

You have to hand it to the Cadets because they really put on a show, you get all the usual bumps and scrapes you would expect of drivers who are still in primary school but no other class provides as many position changes as ‘the tiddlers.’

Saturday’s final was out of this world, one of those races where you really didn’t know who would win until the last corner. Jake Dennis timed it right and could have done the double if he hadn’t have had problems on Sunday. But still, the fact that went from the front row, to dead last and back to third before retiring stands out as one of the drives of the weekend.

As a fan of the underdog it was also good to see drivers like Jordan Houghton, Julian Davies and Daniel Sweeney get a win while it was also pleased to see my fellow Llandow Kart Club members Steve Handford and Sam Parrant do well on Sunday, even if young Steven thought it best to cross the line with one hand on the wheel and the other, err, giving a signal it shouldn’t have been giving. Tut tut. I wouldn’t mind betting that by the end of the year we’ll have had 20 different winners in this class and with the new scoring system, I think the title race will go down to the last race.

I’m still getting my Mini Max and Junior Max drivers mixed up a little bit so I’ll apologise now for getting some of you confused but it was good to see all 31 drivers making it into at least one A Final during the weekend in Mini Max.

It’s situations like these where a driver’s crash helmet design comes into play as the more distinctive the design, the easier you are to spot in a pack of karts, especially at the far side of the track. It also makes it far easier for me to correctly identify and remember a driver quickly, for example Ayrton Senna replica is Rossano Bhandal, luminous orange is Ben Palmer and Mustard, sorry bright yellow is Jack Mayle. Incidentally, I’ve eaten several roast beef and mustard sandwiches since Kimbolton and I can’t help but think of Jack every time I tuck in. But still, if mum and dad say its yellow, its yellow!!

JICA and ICC what can you say about JICA. The sound, the smell, the smoke – these things are the real deal – they look vicious on the track like they are trying their best to beat their driver up. When the karts (and drivers) behave I wouldn’t mind betting that the JICA class will be as exciting as the Cadets during the course of the year and here’s hoping that the current strong numbers continue all season.

For those of you who remember ‘Jim’ll Fix It’ (Kids, ask your parents), my ‘wish’ would be to try an ICC Kart and not worry about paying for the damage if I break it. Even then I’m not sure that my nerves could take one of their standing starts and I can only imagine what it felt like for Frank, Tom, James and the rest of the gearbox loons going down the long straight into the hanger complex. It’s probably no co-incidence that so many of them have dark overalls!

On a final note, it was heart warming to see that a bit of good sportsmanship remains in what is an increasingly professional and serious sport. For Hazz Truelove and his family to donate their spare chassis to a rival after his own was damaged beyond repair deserves its own ‘Jim Fixed it for Me’ medal. I’m not naïve enough to suggest that all drivers should walk round the paddock holding hands or anything, but everyone would do well to remember that karting is just a sport and that, in the greater scheme of life, it isn’t worth getting too upset or angry about.

I can’t believe the amount of fines and penalty points dished out over the weekend either. Karting is expensive enough as it is without the drivers costing their parents even more money by misbehaving. I also know that, in such a competitive sport, every driver has to have a little bit of ‘killer instinct’ in them to succeed but a handshake at the end of the race or a quiet chat if you’ve upset someone is certainly better than handbags at dawn or an argument that sees you still sitting in the clerks office long after most people have packed up and gone home. (That goes for parents and team managers too by the way.)

Anyway I’ve probably ranted on for long enough so I’ll see you at Shenington where it seems that the local residents there have already heard me commentate and have banned me from speaking until the finals (Booo). Oh well, I suppose it gives me more time to practice getting my names and numbers right, memorise crash helmet designs and scavenge as many extra free drinks from you as possible. Remember, I’m coffee with milk and two sugars.