with outstanding national success
It had been coming for quite some time, truth be told, but that only made it taste all-the-sweeter, as Matty Graham finally banished the run of ill-fortune that has dogged him throughout 2011 thus far to streak to success in the second round of the fiercely-contested national Super 1 Series at Shenington, with arguably the most impressive triumph of his burgeoning career.
The 2011 Super 1 curtain-raiser at PF International had been pretty symptomatic of Matty’s season to-date, as the highly-rated Edmundbyers karting star overcame a torrid time of things during qualifying and the heats to fairly storm his way up through the order in the pre-final from 20th to fifth, setting fastest lap along the way for good measure. He was subsequently duelling over a podium position in the grand final when he found himself blamelessly eliminated in a three-way clash. Fast, yes, undeniably fast – but consistently out-of-luck.
“It has been quite frustrating, but I’ve managed to stay calm and keep my confidence up because since I’ve fully adapted to the Zanardi chassis, I know we’ve got the pace,” he maturely reflected. “I feel really settled at Msport Karting, too; the team manager Keiran talks to me a lot about my driving and discusses with me where I can improve, and I’ve developed a really good relationship with my mechanic, Spike.
“I was just aiming for a couple of high finishes at Shenington, to be honest – we were hoping for a change of luck! The Zanardi seems to really suit the circuit and in practice, we knew the kart was really quick – so after that, I had the confidence that we would be able to perform well.”
He would do rather more than merely ‘well’, and up against the toughest KF3 class opposition in the country – the veritable crème de la crème of young British driving talent at that level – Matty was on top form all weekend and went on to place himself firmly in the ballpark with fourth spot in the 24-strong field in qualifying, a scant four hundredths of a second shy of the benchmark and optimistic that having had to hurriedly change the set-up for the drying conditions, there was more speed still to come.
Contact early on in the first heat left the 14-year-old down at the very rear of the pack, but commendably undeterred, he scythed his way magnificently right the way through to take the chequered flag third with fastest lap to his credit – before being excluded over a technical issue, an outcome that was doubly disappointing given his gritty determination to recover in the manner that he had done. Heat two would happily yield payback.
“I didn’t let the exclusion get to me, kept my cool and managed to finish fourth,” Matty recounted, refusing to let his head drop and never once giving in. “It was a really close battle between the seven of us up at the front; it’s really hard to establish a gap over anyone around Shenington because there’s such a strong tow down the straights – and the wind didn’t help matters, either.”
It was an excellent effort, and a disqualification and a penalty ahead of him elevated the Ponteland Community High School pupil to second, placing him 16th on the grid for the first of the two all-important finals and targeting a top eight finish. Two-thirds of the way into the race, he led.
“I didn’t think I’d get as far up as I did,” he confessed of his superb charge. “I thought the leaders would be able to pull away, but I fought my way through and got to the front really quickly. After I got into the lead I briefly built up a bit of a gap, but as I said earlier, it’s really hard to maintain that with the tow round Shenington, and over the last few laps the others worked together to reel me back in and I ended up third. Still, I was really happy with my performance – we showed we were quick enough to be right up there.”
Another fastest lap reinforced Matty’s raw pace as he drove an absolute blinder, at one stage vaulting past three of his rivals in one fell swoop in a supremely brave and brilliantly opportunistic manoeuvre. He very nearly reclaimed the runner-up spot going across the finish line, but not to worry – he would make amends later on...
“Having been the quickest in the pre-final, I was really fired-up for the grand final!” he acknowledged. “Callan O’Keeffe got into the lead and was really quick, so I said to myself, ‘just push him along, because if I overtake him, the chances are we’ll start fighting and the pack behind will catch us up’. I concentrated on pushing him for nearly the whole race whilst thinking about where I was quicker than him and where I would have my best opportunity of getting past.
“I knew I was faster coming out of the hairpin, and on the penultimate lap he went defensive on the entry – which meant he got a really bad run onto the following straight. I kept it tight, and heading towards the chicane I was on the outside line for the first part but the inside – the racing line – for the second. He tried to hang on around the outside and squeezed me a little bit, but there wasn’t enough room for both of us to get through and I wasn’t going to back out of it...”
Matty’s committed but entirely fair move capped a remarkably intelligent drive during which he had sagely turned proceedings into just a two-horse race – inexorably pushing himself and O’Keeffe away from the threat of their pursuers behind – and if the Co. Durham-based speed demon was made to work hard for his victory, it was a result that was thoroughly well-deserved and tremendously popular.
Yet another fastest lap simply underlined his dominance, and the success concretised the promise and potential that has been in evidence all year despite his cruel run of ill-fortune. When everything at last came together, the reigning CIK-FIA Asia-Pacific Champion was unbeatable, seamlessly defeating the very best in Britain and – in O’Keeffe – one of the leading lights on the international stage, too.
At Shenington, the combination of Matty Graham, Msport and Zanardi was the indisputable class of the field, and having climbed from 14th to eighth in the title standings and unquestionably turned a corner, he will head next to Glan Y Gors in North Wales – a circuit that he loves and around which he has a strong previous record – with his tail up and bidding to capitalise upon his building momentum.
“Everyone in the team really wanted this win, and I’m so pleased for all of them that we finally got it,” he concluded. “It even made my dad smile! It was a big result for me, because I hadn’t even had a podium in KF3 in Super 1 before – so it gives me a lot of confidence now going forwards.”
Matty is desperately seeking sponsors to help him to progress his burgeoning career; if you are interested in backing the north-east’s most promising young hotshot, please contact him at: matthew.d.graham@hotmail.co.uk
