Tony Kart team adds Junior crown to Senior success
Jack Barlow delivered an intelligent Champion’s drive to secure the Ginetta Super One Junior Rotax Championship and hand his team yet another national title.
The highly-rated youngster has enjoyed a stellar season with the Sheffield squad, and last Sunday (16 October 2011), claimed his twelfth podium of the season and put the overall victory beyond the grasp of his nearest rival.
Strong from the outset, Barlow narrowly missed out on setting the pole-time to his team-mate Rob Holland by just one hundredth of a second. In the heats Barlow took back-to-back wins to deliver pole position for the pre-final for himself and his team. Holland’s solid heat finishes (3rd and 5th) gave him a third row start.
Jack initially led, but allowed himself to be passed and sat on the new leader’s tail. Knowing that 2nd would be sufficient to see their driver take the title, Strawberry’s strategy was for him to hold station. This Barlow did to a T and he duly crossed the line in a comfortable 2nd to win his first Super One crown. Holland scrapped hard for a 7th place finish.
With Jack not needing to race in the second final Rob upheld the team’s honour with an excellent 3rd place - sealing his best Championship finish with 5th overall.
The team’s talented senior squad experienced mixed fortunes but all laid down exciting markers for next year’s campaign.
In the pre-final, Andy King used his knowledge of his home track to take the chequered flag in 2nd spot, whilst Ash Hand and Jack Marshall both charged up from the midfield to bring their Racer EVRR karts home in 5th and 6th respectively.
In the season finale, Marshall stormed through to an eventual 2nd, ahead of King 3rd and Hand 4th.
Strawberry’s popular Mini Max stars Harry Webb and Zhou Guan Yu also concluded their seasons on a high. Harry topped the timing sheets in qualifying before winning both his heats, whilst ‘Joe’ - as the team call Zhou – delivered his best performance of the year with 5th in TQ followed by 4th and 5th-place finishes in his heats.
In the first final, no one had an answer for Harry. He swept to a dominant victory, with a three second margin over the chasing pack. The ever-improving Joe scored his first S1 podium with a superb 3rd.
A slight mistake in the main race saw Harry lose the chance of taking another victory, but cross the line in 3rd. Similarly Zhou had raced hard but on this occasion, he had to settle for 4th.
Summing up the team’s fortunes, Manager Warwick Ringham said: “This has been another fantastic year for Strawberry and Tony Kart. What makes it all the sweeter is that we have also achieved so much success with our own engine preparation firm, Cream, and in its first year of operation! Jack Barlow and Ed Brand (who won the Senior Max title with a round to spare, hence why he opted not to race) have driven magnificently all year round.”
He added, “We strengthened the squad from mid-season and subsequently all of the guys - unfortunately bar Jay Goodwin, who crashed in practice at Wigan and couldn’t race plus Joe, who missed the first part of the season – ended the year with seeded numbers, I am confident that we will again be the team to beat next year.”
Strawberry’s full, 2012 driver line-up will be announced presently but Ringham teases: “I think it’ll be one of the fastest and most dynamic teams we’ve ever put together. There are Champions and potential championship-winners in all three categories.”
Strawberry Racing uses the Tony Kart Racer EVRR chassis and Cream Racing Engines. For more information about OTK products and Cream’s preparation services go to strawberryracing.co.uk. Or call 0114 269 6215 / 0114 288 9933
