Bowyer revs up for title showdown with victory

Callum Bowyer ensured that he will head into his nail-biting Super 1 Series title showdown with season-long rival Jordan King later this month with the momentum firmly on his side, by triumphing in the Rotax Cup at the same circuit.

The Rotax Cup is an annual outing held around the valley layout at Three Sisters near Wigan, and the 2008 edition marked the first time the young Peterborough ace had entered it.

Competing with his Super 1 outfit ST Racing, Callum had high hopes of a good result, and with the prestigious #1 on his plate from his recent championship success in BRDC Stars of Tomorrow – the same series that set none other than Lewis Hamilton on the fast track to Formula 1 superstardom – he knew he was carrying the reputation of being the driver to beat. He would not disappoint.

“We were just going there really to get some practice in there before Super 1,” the 14-year-old related. “Over the last few weeks we had been on a bit of a roll, so I was quite confident going into the weekend. We had a few problems on the Saturday and weren’t too good in qualifying, though, and we weren’t sure why.”

Indeed, lining up just tenth in a 30-strong field comprising a number of leading Stars’ runners in the shape of King, Jake Dalton and Louise Richardson was far from what Callum had been anticipating at the outset, and with his finishing position in heat one determining his starting position for the second outing, ninth and seventh-placed finishes fell some way below expectations.

“We were still off the pace in the heats,” the Gunthorpe teenager acknowledged, “and they were really tough. It’s really hard to overtake and get through the pack around Wigan’s valley circuit, and we didn’t have the pace to anyway.

“That meant we were having to defend a lot – battling but not really going forward at all – but throughout the weekend we just chipped away, and by the final the kart felt really good.”

Beginning the all-important final sixth, Callum continued his tactics of chipping away to work his way past his competitors, hitting the front less than a handful of laps from home and setting the race’s fastest lap for good measure to take the chequered flag ahead of Louise Richardson. What’s more, the result marked a considerable improvement upon the fifth place he had achieved in the Wigan Gold Cup at the track last year and fourth position in Super 1.

“I was on the outside line on the grid,” he recounted, “which is a bit of a disadvantage at Wigan, but five of us managed to pull away from the rest of the pack and as the laps counted down I just moved my way up to the front.

“I kept pushing, and when I was second I pushed Louise for a bit, then took the lead with three laps to go. I knew at Wigan that it’s really hard to overtake anyway, let alone on the last lap, so I just defended to the flag and made sure there wasn’t really any opportunity for her to get by.”

Turning his attentions forwards now to the Super 1 finale on October 18-19, Callum knows that should he prevail in that too – and he can do so by finishing just one spot behind King in the meeting’s first of two finals – it would cap off a truly momentous campaign.

“To win the Rotax Cup was just great after the weekend we had had up until the final,” the Ken Stimpson School pupil enthused, “and I was really happy. It was a good boost and good preparation for Super 1, and I’m feeling really confident now. It would be just fantastic to win Stars, the ‘0’ Plate and Super 1 – three of the four biggest karting trophies – all in the same year…”

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