The Rochester Motor Club visited their home circuit for their annual Formula 6 kart racing event, round 3 of the South Eastern based four stroke karting championship.

With the sun shining on a lovely warm summer’s day the finals began with a race for the heavyweight drivers, sadly only two entrants made it to the grid but entertained never the less, until Vince LePine lost his nose cone that is forcing him into a frustrating retirement, Steve Turner who had withstood the pressure from LePine well, took the win.

Final 2 was for the Senior Open Twin drivers. This class is always guaranteed to entertain and this race certainly didn’t disappoint.

The usual trio of Tony Whitehead, Graham King and Nigel Cordrey had been racing hard during the three qualifying heats and all was set for a great final. The trios anticipated battle was nearly down to two, when on the warming up lap Cordrey hit trouble with one of his pair of engines, forcing him to pull over to the side of the track.

Such is the camaraderie of these competitors though, the pair of drivers leading the field around slowed to such a pace that Cordrey was able to take up his grid slot for the start.

Once the lights had changed to green the racing began in earnest with Whitehead and King breaking away from Cordrey who was obviously still struggling with his temperamental engine dropping him back.

Dartford’s Barry Lambert and Lee Mitchell took up the third and fourth spots and had their own private battle to the flag. Up front King had muscled himself past Whitehead after several close attempts and managed to hold on to the flag, punching the air in delight for his first win of the year.

Lambert valiantly held off Mitchell to the flag for third place, with Cordrey salvaging fifth from top novice Richard Coleman in 6^th.

The third final saw a tense four way fight for the lead, which was broken up by a controversial moment which soured the race.

Pole man was local driver Thomas Lyndhurst who had won all three of the qualifying heats using his circuit knowledge to perfection.

As soon as the green lights came on he led away for the fifteen minute race, driving well within himself, but tellingly quite defensively.

Behind him Gary Mullan and Dave Ankers fought hard over the second spot, until Mullan took control, his next move was to try and find a way past the impervious Lyndhurst.

For six laps he sat and watched looking to see where the Rochester driver’s defence was weak. Then on lap 15 things came to a head at the first hairpin, when Mullan either misjudged his braking, or was helped from behind, as he pushed Lyndhurst wide grabbing the lead on the run to the second hairpin.

Lyndhurst was naturally upset that Mullan had not given him the place back (which is the racing etiquette in these situations) and tried to squeeze up the inside on the entry to the very tight off camber left handed hairpin.

In doing so he collided with the left side of Mullan’s kart sending them both into a time consuming half spin which delayed Mullan and put Lyndhurst out of the race with a stalled engine.

With a little hindsight I’m sure that both will regret their moves and will learn from the two hairpin clashes, but their races were lost and Dave Ankers guided his kart past them dragging along Anthony Wyatt who had been watching it all unfold in front of him.

The last few laps saw Ankers successfully hold off the rapid novice driver Wyatt to the flag, a mere tenth of a second separating them at the line, Mullan himself a novice recovered to third with Stephen Pallett, Dan Lee and Jason Cooper rounding off the top six.

Lyndhurst and his team tried unsuccessfully to appeal the result as the officials had missed both incidents and would not accept any video evidence, they must surely now plan ahead for the next event and hope that their run of bad luck will come to an end.

After that came the youngest competitors of the day, the Cadet drivers. The racing from these little chargers was nearly as fierce as the Seniors before them.

Local boy Jack Spickett from nearby Walderslade, took the lead from pole man Harry Arthur early on and managed to fend him off for the whole of the 17 lap race.

It was very close though as Dylan Brierley battled with Arthur until the former slipped back slightly. Arthur pushed Spickett to the flag crossing the line a scant two tenths of a second behind.

Brierley took the final podium spot from Jack Spickett’s brother Bradley in fourth; novice driver Jacob Cooper finished fifth.

Once the various divisions within the class were worked out (always confusing at this level) Spickett J took the win from his brother Bradley in the Clubman class, with Harry Arthur defeating Brierley in the Open class, young novice Jacob Cooper picked up a trophy for the Honda Cadet class.

Round 4 sees the championship travel out of Kent to the Ellough Park Raceway in Suffolk on July 4^th.