New Signing Shines for 3DR at Kimbolton!
Monday, 11 August 2008 21:50
The start of August saw a new exciting prospect for the team. After discussions, Minimax protégé Henry Jackson, formerly of Century Motorsport joined the team with a view to completing his 2008 calendar more competitively. With only 8 months of karting under his belt, Henry joined the team with 2 novice wins, right in the hunt for the HKRC Kimbolton championship, and 5th in the Shenington championship.

The team spent the first two weeks of the month testing the 14 year old Telford based driver at their home circuit, Whilton Mill in Northamptonshire. His first test with the team was on the kit previously used with his previous team (Octane/Rotax), and focused on analysing Henry’s strengths, weaknesses, and short term, the best way to bring performance from his engines.

The teams 2nd test was to properly fit Henry into his new Tonykart, and conduct a shakedown of all of the new components ahead of their first race at Kimbolton last weekend. During the test, driver training was also carried out, alongside running as both Mini Max and Junior Max to carry out a full test on the equipment.

‘Two successful tests have shown us that Henry is determined to improve and grow into his new role as the teams’ Minimax driver. Where other drivers struggle to show commitment, Henry has embarked on a training regime to improve his strength and endurance, and throughout the test has taken a lot of information on board which should help him throughout the rest of the year. For sure, Henry has a long way to go to become a top class driver, but he does possess all of the attributes that could one day see him become British champion.’ Team Manager, Tom Smith.

The test on Saturday prior to the race at Kimbolton turned out to be wet, and with the new track surface depositing all of its oil in the rain, the day was tough. The team completed a full test on the three sets of wet tyres available to Henry, and ended the day with top 3 pace on a relatively competitive grid.

Sunday was set to be dry, and for once the weather forecasters weren’t wrong! With a grid of 23 drivers, 4 from the country’s elite ‘Super 1 championship’, an improvement in performance would be any result inside the top 10 for Henry. With two distinctly average heats, culminating in two 10th places, Henry stepped up to the mark with a 2nd place in heat 3. Throughout all 3 heats he was 2nd fastest.

Lining up on grid 6 for the final was a great achievement for the young protégé. A good start saw him hold his position twice from an outside row grid slot after a red flag on lap 1. One driver at the front had up to 7 tenths per lap on the chasing pack of 6 drivers, something that the whole team struggled to understand. However, Henry got stuck in, setting the 2nd fastest time, and achieving a greatly improved 5th after 14 laps of a 6 kart battle.

‘We are very happy with how Henry has approached the last 2 weeks, and this result shows just the improvement that has been made. All credit to the team and Henry for working tirelessly to get him to this stage. We will now aim to turn results in to a run of form at Shenington and the Whilton Mill in the following two weekends,’ Team Principle Don Russell.
 
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