Ash Hand: From shopping trolley to talk of the track

Ash Hand may be one of the newest names on the UK karting scene, but he is not letting that hold him back as he bids to climb the motor racing ladder – all the way up to the pinnacle of Formula 1.

The young Nuneaton ace is currently making waves in the fiercely-competitive BRDC Stars of Tomorrow Championship, the same series that first launched Hamilton on the fast track to the heady heights where he now finds himself, but it was not so long ago that his racing dreams were just that – dreams – as he explains.

“I loved karting right from when I was little,” Ash stated, “anything to do with motorsport basically. I was interested in Formula 1, and started pro-karting with my dad before getting my own kart. He’s to blame for me spending all his money now! I remember once we were racing at Ghibli Raceway in Egypt (scene of the Middle East Championships), and he was looking like he was going to beat me – so I put him in the wall!”

He may have since calmed down somewhat, but just that fleeting outing was enough for the circuit owner to convince the then 11-year-old’s family to make more of his evident potential. Within months Ash had his own kart, had passed his mandatory ARKS (Association of Racing Kart Schools) test and was on the grid at Whilton Mill for his first competitive appearance as a novice.

“It was very different,” he reflected of the jump from pro-karts up to Mini Max. “I kept getting the back end out everywhere. I finished 14th out of 26 in my first-ever race at Whilton, though, and won all the novice awards.

“I struggled to match the front-runners, but overall it wasn’t as hard as I had thought it was going to be. The end result was especially good as everything on the kart was bent – the axle, steering column, everything – and the team described it as like driving a shopping trolley!”

Competing for Woods Racing, the ‘useless’ Intrepid chassis was rapidly ditched for a Zanardi mount – which was promptly written off in Ash’s first race on it. Considerably better times lay ahead, however, with plenty of seat time leading to the George Eliot School pupil breaking a four-year-old lap record at Kimbolton on his maiden visit to the circuit and in the presence of a number of leading names.

He would similarly smash the lap record at Shenington, and remains unbeaten as a rookie at Whilton, Shenington and Rissington. Off his novice plates in June, he immediately triumphed at Kimbolton and entered the prestigious ‘O’ Plate meeting as he began to fulfil his tremendous promise.

“After four meetings at Whilton I was one of the front-runners,” Ash related, “and I ended up ninth in the club championship there in 2007.

“The main thing I learned throughout the year was that it wasn’t going to be easy! I could be fast, but not fast consistently, and I needed to learn to control the kart better too. I was quick from the off, but racecraft is what I’ve increasingly picked up this year.”

Indeed, such was his progress that for 2008 it was decided to push Ash out of his comfort zone and – now with the crack Ultimate Motorsport squad – into national competition in Stars. There he has increasingly embellished his undoubted raw pace with the kind of expert racecraft that only comes with experience and time on the track.

“I didn’t realise it would be so rough!” he confessed of his first national outing at PF International back in April. “My overtaking was good, but I wasn’t going for the moves and sticking my nose in as much as I could have done. Because everyone was so rough, though, you couldn’t get by without making a lunge…”

Inconsistent results early on, allied to no fewer than four black flag-induced disqualifications – the product of a mixture of inexperience and sheer bad luck, such as when he unwittingly overtook under yellow flags at PF – have steadily made way for a run of consistently impressive performances that have seen Ash challenging – and beating – Britain’s best Mini Max contenders.

He has gone on to win heats against some of the top-seeded drivers in the country, and earned himself the coveted ‘Lewis Hamilton True Grit’ award for pulling off the greatest number of passing manoeuvres at Whilton in June.

“I didn’t think this year would go as well as it has done,” he admitted. “I thought it was going to be extremely hard and I wasn’t particularly confident about my chances, but now I’m very confident in my ability in competition.”

One of the undisputed highlights of Ash’s 2008 campaign to-date has to be his overseas trip to Genk in Belgium – his first time racing abroad and, to begin with, something of an eye-opener. A gaping four seconds off the pace initially around a demanding circuit upon which he had never so much as set eyes previously – and one which plays to the advantage of those with greater experience of it – Ash and his new P1 Racing outfit worked tirelessly come rain or shine to analyse what he was doing wrong and make in-roads into the opposition. He did so in some style.

“I found it incredibly hard at first,” he acknowledged. “I was turning into the corners and it felt like I had a flat tyre – I couldn’t get a handle on just how much grip there was, and my lines weren’t very good because I couldn’t get the kart into a position to keep it flowing out of the corners.

“I think I walked the track about 14 times! I couldn’t get to grips with the first hairpin – I kept turning into it too late or too early and hitting the kerb – but we worked so hard to improve. On the Friday I started to push the kart more and it started to give me something back, and by that night I was feeling more confident.”

With what he acknowledged to be a perfect set-up on his kart, the six heat races yielded three top three finishes, including a superb victory having dropped virtually to the rear of the field in the opening encounter on the Sunday due to a first lap fracas. Indeed, the Maple Park teenager was on-course for a second successive triumph in race two – having stormed through to the lead from 19th on the grid – until he was disqualified when he was controversially deemed the guilty party in a collision with Daniel Vaughan.

A terrific scrap with former Ultimate team-mate Matt Parry over third place in the Saturday final eventually culminated in fifth position after being bundled aside by Danny Harwood in the closing stages – another sign of the rough n’ tumble endemic at the sharp end of national competition.

Ash then added to that with seventh place from 12th on the grid the following day – having once again had to come from the very back following an opening lap coming-together. What’s more, the driver who had been ultra-cautious in the wet during practice was transformed into one with whom few of his rivals could keep up only two days later, as he married outstanding pace to breathtaking overtaking moves to flawless effect.

“On the Saturday we were really fast,” he reflected, “and in the wet on the Sunday it was awesome; for six laps I was nearly two seconds quicker than anybody else. In just two laps I dropped Jordan King almost 12 kart lengths – and he’s very fast in the wet.

“In the first heat I got driven over – in fact I think I got driven over six times in six starts over the course of the weekend! – then in the second heat I went from the back to the front before getting black-flagged. In the third heat we still had our wet set-up on the kart, and in the five minutes we were sat on the grid the track dried out.

“In the final I was on a mission after getting the black flag. I got driven over at the start – again! – which left me dead last, but I was then four tenths faster than anybody for the rest of the race, coming through the pack like there was no tomorrow.

“I was really pleased to get the fastest laps too, particularly after how far off the pace we had been on the first day. I think we had a really good weekend overall.”

A podium finish may have slipped through his grasp due to ill-fortune, but with just the final Stars meeting now remaining, at Shenington on 12-14 September, Ash is clearly keen to make amends. As a result of his four black flags, he currently lies 11th in the Lewis Hamilton-sponsored Mini Max title chase rather than inside the top five, but a top six placing is still just about possible should he show his rivals a clean pair of heels around the high-speed Oxfordshire track.

Either way, though, and all things considered, a top ten end-of-season position in his maiden campaign – amongst some 51 competitors – would be a magnificent accomplishment.

“I like the circuit and I’m fast round there,” the 14-year-old concluded, “but it is going to be hard. I’m aiming to get top five finishes on both days…though a podium would be a good way to end the year.”

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