Graham battles back – twice – to clinch greatest victory of his career

He was indisputably the class of the field all weekend in the opening round of the 2011 CIK-FIA Under-18 World Championship at Ortona, was Matty Graham, and even if Lady Luck was not always eager to shine upon him, the talented young Edmundbyers karting star was in no mood to take ‘no’ for an answer.

His first time in what is widely-regarded as one of the most fiercely-disputed karting competitions the world over, Matty headed to the mid-Italian circuit of Ortona under no illusions about the calibre of the 83-strong field – composed of drivers from almost 30 different countries all around the globe – that he would encounter. Many of the front-runners were local specialists with a ‘home’ advantage; all of them were quick.

“I knew it would be tough, because everybody was using the same engines and there were a lot of good drivers there,” confessed the Ponteland Community High School pupil. “I had spent a day testing at Ortona beforehand and been pretty fast, and I like it – it’s good fun to drive. There are a lot of cambered corners and a fast chicane, and generally it’s quite undulating and challenging. I was aiming to just score some good points, and hoping to maybe end up on the podium. I was feeling quite confident.”

That confidence would be borne out in practice, with Matty delivering himself a timely boost before qualifying by proving to be the benchmark throughout. Pole position subsequently reinforced that dominance and firmly installed the 15-year-old as the one to beat – and his first two heat races would result in peerless lights-to-flag victories, with fastest lap in the second of them for good measure. Unfortunately, heat three would be anything but as straightforward.

“As we went round on the rolling-up lap to the grid, at the top of the hill going into the chicane the air box fell off the carburettor and the engine cut out,” he recounts. “I eventually managed to get it back on again, but by then I was last by about a lap, so I just concentrated on continuing on to the end whilst saving my tyres. I knew I needed to finish to score grid points towards the finals, because if you don’t finish, you don’t score – although admittedly, on the last lap I did go for it, just to see how quick I could go...”

The answer was very fast indeed, comfortably better than anybody else could manage and almost four tenths of a second quicker than the race-winner as Matty sent out a potent warning shot to his rivals. In the fourth and last heat, the MSport Zanardi ace was always in control, never putting so much as a wheel out-of-place, artfully fending off an early challenge from behind and then – as his kart increasingly came to him – putting in some scintillating late laps to break his pursuers’ spirits.

Tenth in the intermediate rankings – when but for his third heat misfortune he would almost certainly have been on pole – was converted into second place courtesy of a determined effort and gutsy last-lap pass in the first of the two pre-finals, followed by a searing effort to scythe his way magnificently up through the order from the very back of the reverse-grid to seventh in the next.

“That was a hard race,” Matty reflected. “There was a lot of contact at the start, because the track was so dirty and dusty you could hardly see anything. Luckily, I got through the chaos, but with Ortona being quite a fast circuit, overtaking isn’t easy – you need slower corners ideally for that. I managed to fight my way through well, though.”

That he indubitably did, and his aggregate points total earned him pole for the all-important grand final – when the pressure was really on. An engine problem when the starting-lights went out cost the Co. Durham-based speed demon ground as he found himself helplessly swallowed up by a quartet of rapid local experts, leaving him embroiled in a fraught five-way scrap for supremacy during the opening half of the race, all blanketed by less than a second and with a sizeable gap back to the chasing pack.

“I think the engine oiled-up a bit on the rolling-up lap, because it wouldn’t pull away very well,” he reveals. “When I eventually did get going I was down in fifth place, but I just focussed on coming back through. Halfway into the race, I went up the inside of the driver in third, but he turned in on me and pushed me completely off the track and onto the grass, dropping me more than three seconds behind the leaders.

“At that point, I honestly thought the win was gone – but because I was so angry, the red mist came down and I was even more determined to get back up there. As I was gaining on the leading pack, they started to fight amongst themselves, and I caught them really quickly. When I got into second place with five laps to go, I thought, ‘I can still win this’, and due to the way we had set it up, the kart was getting stronger-and-stronger and quicker-and-quicker throughout the race.

“Going down the back straight and into the chicane, I overtook the leader – it’s not easy to get past there, since it’s quite a high-speed entry. Once I was in the lead, I got really nervous, but as I saw I was opening up a gap over the others, I began to feel more relaxed. After that, I simply had to keep calm and concentrate on not making any mistakes.”

Having been in similar situations before, Matty knew what he needed to do, and the manner in which his never-say-die charge saw him relentlessly hunt down his adversaries and reel them back in again was mesmerising to behold. Setting some outstanding lap times and pulling off some supremely brave and decisive overtaking manoeuvres along the way, when the reigning CIK-FIA Asia-Pacific Champion took the chequered flag almost four seconds clear of his closest pursuer, the tension was suddenly unleashed like a cork. The relief was palpable.

Admitting that being such a hard-fought triumph only served to make it all-the-more satisfying, the north-eastern hotshot acknowledged that he had learned a lot over the course of the weekend. What’s more, despite his carburettor issue frustratingly denying him maximum points from the meeting, having consistently been the pace-setter throughout and with several of his most serious competitors having either failed to finish or been disqualified, he can look ahead to the remaining two Under-18 rounds positive indeed about his prospects.

“I just felt so happy afterwards,” Matty mused in conclusion. “I think it really began to sink in up on the podium, when the flags came down behind us and they played the British National Anthem – that was definitely a proud moment. I got absolutely soaked in the celebrations – right down the back of my neck – but it was more than worth it. The CIK-FIA U18 World Championship is a really prestigious event, so this was probably the biggest result of my career.”

Matty is seeking sponsors to help him to progress his burgeoning career; if you are interested in backing him, please contact him at: matthew.d.graham@hotmail.co.uk