It was always going to happen at Whilton Mill, on reflection, and for Tom Harvey, the circuit that has brought him such outstanding success in recent months has now bestowed upon him the crowning glory of his impressive fledgling career thus far – the title of 2010 British Karting Champion.
The highly-rated South Wales speed demon travelled to Whilton for the penultimate outing in the fiercely-contested Super 1 Series, uniting the indisputable crème de la crème of young homegrown talent bidding to climb the motorsport ladder and follow in the wheeltracks of the likes of current F1 World Championship leader Lewis Hamilton and McLaren-Mercedes team-mate and defending F1 World Champion Jenson Button. Arriving with a commanding 45-point advantage in the drivers’ standings, Tom clearly had every intention of finishing the job off ahead of time.
“I knew I had a chance to wrap it all up at the weekend, and I was feeling confident of being able to do so,” reported the Bonvilston-based hotshot. “We had worked out the points and I needed to score 89 out of a possible 100 from the two finals, so the main thing was just to try to keep calm and keep my head. I love Whilton Mill as a track; I know it like the back of my hand and I’ve won nearly every time I’ve been there lately, which helped my confidence loads.”
Whilst carburettor issues saw to it that Saturday went far from according to-plan – as Tom qualified a distinctly unaccustomed 13th out of the 28 British MSA Cadet class competitors, albeit barely a quarter-of-a-second shy of the benchmark behind the wheel of a kart that he admitted was ‘just undriveable, because I had no power off the corners’ – with no time to do anything about it ahead of his opening heat race, 13th was again the result as he languished uncharacteristically down in the midfield.
Happily, overnight changes transformed his Fusion Motorsports mount, and in heat two the following morning the Cowbridge High School pupil stormed through the order from 13th place to second, less than three tenths adrift of the winner and with a better fastest lap time to his name to-boot. The heavens then opened prior to the first final, which theoretically left Tom on the back foot once more with no wet set-up to resort to. Theoretically.
“The problems we had on Saturday were really frustrating, but I was still 100 per cent confident of being able to turn it all around the next day,” he asserted. “When I went out on Sunday morning, the carb was perfect, and I was ‘lit’ in the three-lap warm-up session.
“I started the first final seventh, and quickly worked my way up to third. I was then able to break away from the pack behind, but with it being so greasy out there it was really hard work – if you tried to take your normal dry-weather line you would be straight off, and I got tagged a couple of times along the way. I was really pleased to finish third, and fastest lap proved I had the pace in the wet as well.”
Even more importantly still, with Lando Norris and Max Vaughan – the only two drivers who could mathematically pip him to the laurels – both winding up outside of the top ten, Tom was one step closer to lifting the laurels, too...and the second final would seal the deal.“My team-mate Nathan Aston was on pole, and my plan was to push him away at the start and then keep pushing the two of us clear of the rest of the field,” the 12-year-old revealed, “and that’s exactly what I did. We opened up a huge gap back to third place, and then I just pushed Nathan over the finish line. He wasn’t a threat to me in the championship, so I didn’t need to beat him and I happily settled for second, which meant it worked out well for both of us in the end.”
A magnanimous champion as he willingly shared the glory, the Vale of Glamorgan ace came away with 94 points from the weekend, comfortably more than either Vaughan or Norris could muster and meaning he has now stood up on the podium ten times from 12 finals in Super 1 this season – and even in the two that he didn’t, he wasn’t far off in fifth and sixth places – making him the very model of peerless consistency.
It was, all-told, wholly appropriate that the crowning act in his title success played out at Whilton, scene of so many triumphs that have seen Tom dubbed the ‘Whilton Wizard’ – and although he may not have won the race this time, he took away an altogether greater prize.“It felt great to take the chequered flag – I went over the line celebrating with my fist in the air!” he enthused in conclusion, admitting that it may all take a little while longer to fully sink in. “It was absolutely amazing when they confirmed that I was British Champion – Lando and Max have both been such tough competitors and the three of us have had some really good battles together, and this is what we’ve been working so hard for all year. I need to say a massive ‘thank you’ to Fusion Motorsports, team boss Dan Hazlewood, my mum and dad and Leon and Di at Soixante Racing for fantastic engines. I’m just over-the-moon!”
