* Search underway for the world’s top historic karter.
* Legendary names to return to their roots.
The British Historic Kart Club, one of the fastest growing kart clubs in the UK, is throwing its doors open to the rest of historic karting world next May at Donington Park.
On the back of the most successful RetroRacer Championship to date in 2011, the BHKC and the Donington Historic Motorsport Festival will join forces to host a single round Historic Karting Championship open to drivers from all over the world on May 5th and 6th next year with upwards of 200 entries expected to attend.
Using the famous Melbourne Loop part of the newly renovated Donington Park circuit, which hosted the legendary British Grand Prix events in the 1930’s, drivers and their karts will take their own place in the history books on the same stretch of tarmac that saw the might of Mercedes Benz and Auto Union thrill the world more than 70 years ago.
Running to similar regulations used in the RetroRacer Championship in the UK where karts are split between Class I Direct Drive and Class IV Gearbox with separate sub-divisions based on the age of the karts, the event is open to any air-cooled powered kart built before the end of December 1982.
Entries for the event have already been flooding in from several continents with 1978 World Karting Champion and former NASCAR Winston Cup driver Lake Speed and 1968 World Champion Edgardo Rossi from Italy slated to compete. In addition to Speed and Rossi, drivers who contest the burgeoning RetroRacer series, which already attracts drivers from across the UK and Channel Islands, will have to face stiff competition from the Dutch and German historic karting scene, who has also confirmed their attendance.
British Historic Kart Club patron Barrie ‘Wizzo’ Williams, whose father built the extremely successful and popular Fastakart chassis that competed in the UK’s very first organised kart race at Lakenheath in 1959, will enter the event in a 1960 Fastakart/Villiers alongside fellow motorsport veteran Brian Jordan while Ed McDonough, one of the early pioneers of karting in the late 1950’s, will also drive in a 100cc Birel/Parilla that he is currently restoring.
As ever with the historic karting scene, many of the real stars will be the karts themselves and one of the most special machines in action will be the 1979 DAP/DAP kart driven currently by 1980 100cc British Champion Ken Warner but raced in period by none other than Ayrton Senna. Owner Jeff Gray has lovingly restored the kart, which will be driven by Warner and overseen off track by another successful ex-racer Ken Tossett.
The 1959 Progress kart used by Graham Hill to win Britain’s inaugural kart race at Lakenheath will also return to competitive racing for the first time in almost half a century and will compete in the Vintage Gearbox class along with the famous front engined Del-kart/Suzuki that was part of the late Tom Wheatcroft’s world famous Donington Collection for thirty years.
Entry forms and specific regulations will be available shortly. For more information please visit britishhistorickartclub.co.uk or retroracer.org
