It is less than a year since Luke Whitworth took his first tentative steps on the British karting stage, but as he continues to do battle against adversaries with infinitely more experience under their belts than he has, the fast-improving young Rotherham hotshot has been demonstrating recently just how far he has come.
Having claimed an excellent top 15 championship finish in the Lewis Hamilton and Bernie Ecclestone-backed Formula Kart Stars (FKS) series, Luke has embarked upon a programme of winter testing and club meetings that is primarily an opportunity to gain more mileage and racing experience ahead of the resumption of national hostilities in FKS and Super 1 next year.
Maturely treating any results as merely a bonus, the 15-year-old headed to the high-speed Shenington circuit in Oxfordshire for his latest outing preparing to pit himself against one of the toughest grids yet.
“If I can do well now, people will probably recognise my name a bit more, and other drivers might start to work with me rather than against me,” he quipped. “There were a lot of seeded drivers from Super 1 at Shenington, so the competition was pretty tough but I just had to get on with it.
“I used to race there as a novice, but I hadn’t been back since January; I enjoy the track – it’s a real mixture with its long straights, hairpins and chicanes, and good fun to drive. We’d had a bad result the previous weekend at Kimbolton, so I wanted to make up for that at Shenington and I was feeling confident.”
With his hitherto mangled arm – badly-broken in a nasty accident during the summer – now happily back to full strength, the Wickersley-based speed demon began the first of his two heat races on a damp track surface from the very back row.
“I was able to force my way through at the start and get reasonably close to the front,” Luke recounted, “and I had quite a good set-up in the wet, too, so I could pass a few more drivers after that and ended up sixth. Our pace was good and we were pleased with that result.”
It was, indeed, an encouraging outcome, but heat two – the first time in his career that he had ever begun from the front row, only serving to highlight just how much of a deficit in the experience stakes he is facing relative to his rivals – would sadly not go quite so well, as the Wickersley School and Sports College pupil suffered a bad getaway and subsequently struggled for pace in the drier conditions with a set-up not at all to his liking.
“There were some wet patches on the track still, and I kept making small mistakes and going off-line onto them,” he explained, “and when you make one mistake in those kinds of conditions, you end up with muck on your tyres which means it’s all-too-easy to make more-and-more. It’s a bit of a vicious circle and it was quite a frustrating race, to be honest, and my confidence dropped.
“I had to get my head straight again for the final after that, but I got a pep talk from my mechanic Sam which gave me a boost and put me in a much more positive frame of mind. I started the final tenth and got tagged on the first lap which dropped me down the field, but we had got the set-up spot-on by then which made the kart really easy to drive, and I just got my head down.
“As soon as I caught someone I would pass them straightaway, and I gradually got towards the front. It was good fun fighting my way through the pack like that, and to be able to race so well against such a strong grid gave me a lot of confidence. It proved that I can do it when everything goes right – and I’ve just got to take what I learned over the weekend to all my other race meetings now.”
For a driver who only a matter of months ago had used to be so nervous when it came to overtaking – invariably thinking about making a move before just as swiftly thinking better of it – the transformation has been truly remarkable and hugely impressive. Now there is not so much as a hint of hesitation to Luke’s racecraft, and certainly no backing out. His commitment and confidence in the kart have improved tenfold – and the Yorkshire ace is looking increasingly the complete package.
Taking the chequered flag fifth in the final out of some 31 Junior Max competitors – including a number of leading Super 1 contenders – was a superb result, and just reward for a gritty and determined performance. Eyeing a top ten overall finish in FKS in 2011 and the top 20 in Super 1, on the evidence of what he is doing right now, Luke is well on-target and his goals appear eminently achievable and then some.
As he vows to do plenty of testing over the coming months to bring himself right up-to-speed and really come out-of-the-blocks fighting next year, practice, as the old adage goes, does indeed make perfect.
