Luke Whitworth did not know quite what to expect upon his karting return from an accident eight weeks earlier that had left him with a badly-broken left arm – but racing to his maiden podium finish in the sport around a circuit that he had never so much as set eyes upon before was surely beyond even his wildest dreams.

Luke had just achieved his breakthrough top ten finish at national level in the Lewis Hamilton and Bernie Ecclestone-backed Formula Kart Stars (FKS) Championship with a superb eighth place in torrential conditions on the series’ annual overseas trip to Genk in Belgium, when he found his burgeoning momentum brutally curtailed by an accident at PF International in Lincolnshire that left his arm pointing in two different directions.

Upon his competitive comeback in the 2010 FKS finale at Ellough Park Raceway in Suffolk, the highly-promising young Rotherham star wasted little time in demonstrating that not only was his momentum still very much intact – but he was in fact driving even better than he had been before.

“I was feeling really positive,” he stated. “We had done a couple of test days beforehand and weren’t that far off the pace, so that gave me a lot of confidence going to Ellough – though admittedly I was a little bit nervous, too, because I didn’t want to get caught up in a crash and risk hurting my arm again before it had fully-healed.

“It’s a really tight-and-twisty circuit, which made it hard to overtake, and because everything happened so fast, I never really got much time to think about anything – or to give my arm a rest! At the end of the day, though, I just had to try to put it all out of my mind and get on with it.”

Whilst his arm was palpably still hurting outside of the kart, on-track the adrenaline enabled Luke to fleetingly forget about the pain, and although it was only at about 80 per cent strength over the weekend, he coped magnificently, and spent Friday practice simply re-acclimatising himself to finding the right gearing, tyre pressures and general set-up.

Making swift progress, the following day, the Wickersley-based speed demon went on to qualify an excellent eighth amongst the fiercely-contested 20-strong Junior Max class field – his best starting slot yet in national competition, providing him with a timely confidence boost. Having been a second or more shy of the outright pace earlier on in the campaign, the 15-year-old has now halved that deficit as he moves inexorably up the order – impressive progress indeed.

“Unfortunately, I was on the outside of the grid for both of my heat races,” he went on. “In the first one we had really good pace throughout and finished ninth, but in the second heat I spun down to the back at the start – and with the layout of the circuit being like it is and not having any previous experience there, I struggled to fight my way back through. I found it really hard and ended up 15th, but I put that behind me for the final.

“I started the final on the inside line in 11th, which definitely helped as I got away really well, putting me towards the front straightaway. The weather had got a lot cooler since the heats which meant there was less grip out there, and I think I just adapted to those conditions better than most of the others – they all seemed to go slower, whereas I was the fastest I had been all day.

“My team-mate Ash Hand worked with me as we pushed each other along – he helped me out for a couple of laps to make sure I had a decent gap behind me, and then because he was quicker I let him go into fourth. Fifth was a brilliant result, and really boosted us going into the second day.”

Eighth at Genk had been good, but this was something else altogether, and on Sunday, Luke went on to qualify 11th, before notching up a brace of solid top ten finishes in the heats and beginning the all-important final from eighth.

“I lost out at the start due to being on the outside line,” he recalled. “With it being quite a fast first corner at Ellough, the starts tend to be pretty quick generally, and there was quite a big accident ahead. I just managed to miss it all and get around the outside, which left me in the lead – I could barely believe it!”

Whilst luck might have been on his side, given the rough ride he has had to endure since breaking his arm, none could argue the Wickersley School and Sports College pupil did not deserve it. After that, he simply tried to hold onto his advantage – a genuine ‘first’ – for as long as he could, and he succeeded in remaining in front for several laps before, perhaps inevitably given his comparative inexperience still, he found himself embroiled in a four-way tussle for supremacy.

With the 21-lap length of the final making the race physically draining and the nature of Ellough’s layout meaning his arm rarely got a ‘break’ – if you’ll excuse the pun – Luke’s stamina understandably began to flag in the closing stages and he fell slightly from the pace as the pain kicked in, but the P1 Racing ace nonetheless grittily and determinedly stuck with the lead quartet as they pulled well away from the chasing pack.

Taking the chequered flag fourth, a subsequent penalty for the driver ahead for overtaking with all four wheels off the track promoted him to third, with incredibly the equal second-fastest lap time of the race to his name, a scant two hundredths of a second adrift of the quickest outright.

What’s more, a year almost to the day that he had been granted his official racing licence, the result also cemented 15th spot in the end-of-season standings, a mere three points shy of 14th and securing the ‘seeded’ number that will accompany it next year – mission accomplished and, given the tall order it had appeared ahead of the weekend, somewhat against-the-odds, too.

As he acknowledges that he needs to work hard to build his strength back up again and return to full fitness over the winter months – combined with a rigorous on-track testing programme in an effort to hit the ground running and right at the front in 2011 – the Yorkshire hotshot was left to reflect on a weekend over the course of which he had overcome everything he had been up against and more besides, and one that had come to the ‘perfect’ conclusion.

“I was really happy when I found out I had finished third,” he enthused. “It was the first podium I’ve had in karting, and for it to have come in FKS was just a brilliant way to end the season and made it even better! Hopefully there might be a few more of them next year...”