Jack Barlow’s first victory of the year has also put him within touching distance of the Super One championship lead
The third round (of seven) of the series saw the Millennium Motorsport driver take the upperhand from the outset, with a superb performance in timed qualifying yielding his first pole position of the season - albeit by a whisker.
“I took pole by just one one-hundredth of a second,” Jack explained, adding: “The gap to the third-quickest driver was half a second, so it was close between myself and (defending champion) Mark Litchfield.
Engine gremlins prevented Barlow from taking a lights-to-flag victory in his opening heat, but he was still able to finish 2nd quite comfortably: “The motor would cut out but then come back to life again. This cost me two to three tenths (of a second) down the straights and allowed Mark to escape. I sensed it was something to do with the carburettor so I adjusted its settings to make it better, but by the time I’d done that it was not good enough to catch him.”
Although he made a strong getaway from the start line in the second encounter but was reeled in by Litchfield and Ben Barnicoat. When they clashed, Barlow grasped his chance and powered into an unassailable lead, eventually winning by a comfortable margin.
His 2nd and 1st-place finishes again earned Barlow and his Intrepid/TM combination pole position, this time for the first of Sunday’s two championship points-scoring finals.
As he and his fellow competitors waited in the pits prior to the pre-final, the rain stopped and it soon became clear that the track surface was drying quickly, prompting feverish activity amongst the assembled field.
“My kart, like everyone else’s, had a full wet set-up on it. Suddenly we had a mad panic to change everything; the tyres, the gearing, caster and camber, tracking, the hubs, the whole lot and in just four minutes. My mechanic did an amazing job and got me ready in the available time. It was an exciting race, although the still damp surface meant there was only one racing line around the whole circuit. I got a really good start and a big gap. Once the race settled down I maintained my lead at about one and a half seconds over Litchfield. It became a game of cat and mouse, where he would go faster and catch me up, so I would have to push to re-open the distance between us. He was slightly faster than me, but I was able to respond each time and won.”
Buoyed by his first win, Barlow and his team looked set to repeat their earlier triumph as he led the incident-packed second final.
“Mark and Ben had managed to pass me early into the race. They looked more comfortable and had superior pace. Another driver passed me, putting me down to 4th. I knew I couldn’t afford to lose time and ground on the leaders so attacked for 3rd and got it back but he came back at me. We traded places again and it was a case of ‘third time lucky’ when I managed to re-take 3rd and create a gap.”
With Barnicoat and Litchfield preoccupied in their private scrap, Jack began to edge ever closer: “I halved the gap but, as we approached Turn One, Ben lunged down Mark’s inside and they touched.”
The crash forced his two rivals onto the sidelines and handed Barlow a two-second lead. He was cruising to what looked like a certain second victory when his engine seized. “It was all going so well but, with just five minutes remaining, my motor started to make a really weird noise. One lap later it let go as I braked for the first hairpin. We still don’t understand the cause.”
However, with his closest title rivals also not finishing the race, the blow to Jack’s championship hopes was markedly softened. “Had I won, I would have left Larkhall leading overall. I’m just ten points off the top now and it is very close. I just have to keep my wits about me as we move into the second half of the season. I would like to thank Millennium’s Dean Panrucker and Jason Williams for all their hard work, GFR’s Gordy Finlayson, Arai and adidas and, of course, Intrepid UK’s Benjy Russell for his generous support with the chassis.”
Jack is now hard at work preparing for the second round of the European KF2 Championship which will take place on 19-22 July at the PFi circuit, near Grantham, Lincolnshire.
