1 Callum BOWYER (37) 46 50 46 48 48 50 39 50 42 (24) 419

2 Jordan KING 50 50 43 40 38 (33) 40 50 48 39 (23) 398

3 Louise RICHARDSON 40 40 41 (18) (32) 50 48 40 35 50 48 392

4 Paul HARDY (38) 44 (24) 48 44 40 39 43 42 40 44 384

5 Jake DALTON (35) 43 (37) 43 43 37 42 42 46 43 39 378

 Jordan King came agonisingly close to triumphing in one of the most prestigious events on the Karting calendar – and though he eventually had to settle for the bottom step of the rostrum instead, he had nevertheless been able once more to demonstrate his devastating pace.

The young Harbury ace – a regular front-runner in BRDC Stars of Tomorrow, the same series that first set none other than a certain Lewis Hamilton on the fast track to future Formula 1 glory – warmed up for his latest outing by participating in a two-day fitness training course at Bath University.

“It was all about measuring my fitness and to design an exercise regime for me for the next couple of years,” he related. “There was a lot more technology there than I had thought there would be, and it was quite exciting trying out the various exercises. It was certainly an eye-opener, and well worth going.”

From there Jordan headed to Clay Pigeon for the ‘0’ Plate meeting, with the winner gaining the honour of being able to carry the coveted number ‘0’ on their kart for the remainder of the year. The 14-year-old arrived at the Dorset circuit in high spirits and with a strong record there, having stormed to pole position during the pre-season shakedown back in February and to victory three weeks later in the opening round of the national Super 1 Championship – and with firm intentions of finishing considerably higher up the order than he had done in the 2007 ‘0’ Plate, when he took the chequered flag ninth at Whilton Mill.

First, second and third place finishes in his opening three heats – from distinctly lowly grid positions in two of them and with fastest lap in the latter to boot – marked an encouraging way to begin, but then matters took a turn for the worse.

“It’s the biggest one-off event of the year and most of the top runners were there,” he explained of the 18-strong, quality-rather-than-quantity Mini Max field, “and I wanted to win it a lot! In practice we were really quick, which was a good start.

“The first three heats were good, and we were looking to be on pole quite comfortably for the pre-final, but then the battery went down in the fourth heat; it just cut out on-track completely without warning whilst I was battling up there in the top three again, which meant I didn’t finish that one.

“Then in the last heat it started to rain halfway through and I came off. After that I was too far behind to catch the others up, so I just went around slowly so as not to risk doing any damage to the kart.”

Indeed, on the subject of damage, Jordan’s challenge was hardly aided by having had to change chassis from his habitual Tonykart mount to a Kosmic between practice and the races, after encountering problems going over the kerbs, but beginning the pre-final in fifth, he knew his chances were far from over.

“I still felt ok about it,” the Repton Grammar School pupil asserted, “because we knew we were fast. I knew if I could just stay with the top three runners I would be fine. After several laps I got into the lead, pulled out a bit of a gap and just maintained that.

“I did have a slight scare going into the last corner on the last lap when the kart bounced a bit and I had to slow right down, but I wasn’t too worried because I knew Callum Bowyer behind me wouldn’t do anything stupid coming across the line.”

That performance – taking the chequered flag a scant tenth of a second to the good – earned Jordan the advantageous pole spot for the all-important grand final and, for a while at least, he looked like making it cause for a double celebration.

“I got into the lead from the start,” he recounted, “and after we had swapped places for the first eight laps or so the kart began to come on. That allowed me to pull away by about eight kart-lengths, but then I made a mistake which left me in a vulnerable position, as a chain reaction from that led to worse things happening and I lost out.

“Going round a long right-hander I ran a bit wide and fell to the back of the leading pack, before there was a crash right in front of me. I had to slow right down to avoid it, which meant I consequently lost touch with Callum and Louise Richardson.”

Ultimately coming home third, whilst a podium finish may ordinarily be reason for cheer, given his burgeoning reputation as one of the UK’s very finest young motorsport talents, and the fact that he and Bowyer had proven to be in a class of their own throughout the weekend, Jordan knew a better result had slipped through his fingers.

“I was really gutted,” he reflected, nonetheless taking the trouble to thank his mechanic Stuart Wright for all his hard work. “I wasn’t nervous beforehand; in fact I was actually quite chilled out. When I was in the lead of the final I think I was perhaps just trying a little bit too hard. I had the pace to win it…”

Action shots courtesy of Chris Walker / Kartpix.net

Portrait courtesy of Graham Smith / TSR Productions

 A collection of excellent action shots from the 2008 season. Again a special thanks to Chris Walker at www.kartpix.net

Stars of Tomorrow – Round 8

13th September 2008 – Shenington

Hosted by BRDC Stars Of Tomorrow

Event Summary
Best Result :	1st – Minimax Stars – Heat 3 – Race 11
Best Lap Time :	45.18s – Minimax Stars – Heat 3 – Race 11
Best Gain :	Gained 15 places – Minimax Stars – Heat 3 – Race 11

A big thankyou to www.super1.co.uk for compiling the stats.

Jordan King has made remarkable progress in karting despite having been competing for just two years, and so much has he come along in that time he is already eyeing a national title.

The Harbury ace may have got into the sport late – and somewhat by chance – but he is rapidly making up for lost time with some eye-catching performances. To see him out on-track, you would be hard pressed to tell he only first climbed into a kart 24 months ago.

“I did some indoor karting at some parties,” he explains, “and the guy running it said I was quite good and should go and try outdoor karting too. My dad then got in touch with Ian Goff and we went to a test day. It was a lot faster with a lot more grip, and much harder to get used to at first.”

Goff is the man who runs Xtreme Racing, and only the next month Jordan took his preliminary ARKS (Association of Racing Schools) test before competing in his first true race meeting at Kimbolton in October, 2005, clinching the novice trophy.

Once off novice plates, he had just one more race before the time was deemed right for Jordan to step up to the national scene with a Super 1 outing at Three Sisters near Wigan, where he narrowly missed out on automatic promotion through into the cadet ‘A’ final. Despite the majority of the circuits being unknown ground to him, he made his breakthrough soon afterwards at PF International in the second round of Super 1, securing an encouraging 15^th place against the best cadet drivers in the country.

“Going into 2006 my aim was simply to get through into the ‘A’ finals, then halfway through the year I was starting to run mid-pack and by the end I was beginning to win races,” he says, summarising his maiden campaign.

Indeed, Jordon was initially torn between his two passions of racing and football, being a star player for his village squad and the top goal-scorer for the team – the league champions – in his last season with them despite missing four games. It was, at times, a real juggling act.

“At first it was difficult to drag myself away from the football,” he confesses, “but that became easier after I started to win races…”

One of his best early results came in BRDC Stars of Tomorrow at Genk in Belgium in 2006 – a weekend that would also witness what he refers to as his best crash…

“Going down the straight I had my head down,” he recalls, “but Sam Jenkins came up alongside me. As I saw him I started to drift across to the left, went off the track and straight into the tyres. I hit the start-finish gate head-on at top speed and managed to throw eight tyres across the track…”

He had been lying solidly inside the top five at the time, and further measure of Jordan’s startling progress came when he triumphed in the final cadet race of his career at Shenington, seeing off the cream of the class crop including the likes of Alex Albon, James Appleton, Jake Dennis and current British MSA Cadet Champion Brett Wykes. And with that, he moved up to Mini Max.

“When I started off in Mini Max it was quite hard,” he admits. “I wasn’t strong enough for the kart and first and we could only complete half a day during test days because it was a lot harder physically, but now it’s ok. Back at the start of the year I was running midfield in club meetings, and now I’m consistently up at the front in Stars and Super 1. That’s really good, because it was a very big step-up for me to be able to come from the back of the pack and start racing against the front-runners.”

A starring performance in the wet during the prestigious annual Kartmasters event at PF International saw Jordan climb up through the field into second place in the grand final until he became a victim of treacherous conditions, and he would ultimately wind up a strong twelfth in Stars’ end-of-season drivers’ standings.

“Jordan has made fantastic progress in such a short time,” enthuses Goff. “he has rapidly become one of the top young karters in the UK, and we have great things planned for him in the future. We are very impressed with him.”

An all-round sportsman, Jordan has a sports scholarship at Repton School, the leading public football school in the country and former alma mater to Roald Dahl, Jeremy Clarkson and C.B. Fry. Prior to that he used to captain his old school at both cricket and football, but he leaves little doubt that his focus for the moment is firmly on his racing. A Formula Renault test is planned for over the winter months, ahead of an all-out assault on national Mini Max honours in 2008. given his relative lack of experience compared to his rivals, should he succeed that would be some accomplishment.

“After I started getting a bit quicker and moving towards the front, the other drivers up there didn’t know who I was so they tended to bully me around a bit,” the 13-year-old concluded. “I had to fight for everything and make a name for myself.”

They don’t bully him anymore.

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