Walkington Shines at Kartmasters

James Walkington of Dan Holland Racing recorded his best result to date at national level by coming 8th in both Mini-Max finals of last weekend's Kartmasters MSA GP at PF International. According to DHR Team owner Dan Holland "James had by far the drive of his life and hopefully this is the start of good things to come!"

Walkington's achievements were all the more impressive because he had to use his second choice engine for the second half of the meeting. "The kart felt strong during practice" said Walkington "but I was disappointed to achieve only a mid-field finish in qualifying. I could feel the engine going off towards the end of the session". After another mid-field finish in his first heat it was clear that Walkington's engine was not performing as it had been so the Team replaced it with Walkington's second engine for the next heat where he drove an excellent race to finish sixth.

His combined heat results placed Walkington 14th on the grid of 34 for the 1st final. A solid start promoted Walkington to 11th place at the end of the first lap and some intelligent driving thereafter saw him move up to 8th at the chequered flag.

Starting from 8th in the second final, Walkington appeared to make another good start but then had to take to the grass to avoid a spinning Lemuel Pay in front of him. As the race settled down, the lead karts fragmented in to a group of 4 and a group of 7 with Walkington and Luke Hughes 2 seconds adrift of the latter.

After passing Hughes on lap 5 Walkington set about narrowing the gap ahead but found he was unable to do so without a friendly "tow" to help him down the straights. Only as the front group slowed whilst jockeying for position over the final 2 laps was Walkington able to get close to the action, snatching 8th place in the last dash to the line.

Published in The Grid 4th August 2010