Gripless Ingram fights hard for little reward

Tom Ingram may have endured a nightmare start to his 2008 BRDC Stars of Tomorrow title challenge at PF International, but the young High Wycombe ace has vowed to return for round three at Rowrah ‘all guns blazing’ and gunning for glory.

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Photo by Chris Walker/Kartpix

The 14-year-old is this year bidding to add Stars’ Junior Max laurels to the Mini Max crown he clinched in 2006, but with 51 other drivers – twice as many as last year – all sharing the same aim of title glory, he is all-too aware that it will be no walk in the park. Indeed, the sheer number of competitors means a ‘B’ final has had to be introduced to separate the wheat from the chaff as it were, and at that stage of proceedings – with only four drivers making it through to the all-important ‘A’ final – desperation can set in, as Tom found out to his cost during the opening round of Super 1 at Clay Pigeon last month.

“There’s a lot more competition this year, with drivers having come in from Super 1,” he explained. “There’s a lot more pushing and shoving, and overall it’s going to be a lot tougher.

“I think there will be more pressure to get results, because if you end up in the ‘B’ final it means you’ve lost a lot of points and you may find it quite a challenge to climb back up in the championship again.”

The ‘B’ final would not trouble the reigning Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year over the course of the weekend at PF – a circuit he had only visited a handful of times previously, and one he characterised as being ‘featureless’ – but the driving standards of some of his rivals and his kart would, as power and grip woes dogged him throughout.

Tom was disadvantaged further in Saturday’s opening heat – which he would begin from the front row of the grid – when a regulations mix-up saw him having to carry an extra three kilos of fuel compared to his rivals, what he equated to being worth around two or three tenths of a second per lap.

That notwithstanding, he still got the jump at the start and led for six of the race’s ten laps before being hauled in by his pursuers. Though a late challenge to regain second place on the final tour proved briefly successful, he would take the chequered flag third, a scant 1.8 seconds adrift of the winner – or an average of less than two tenths of a second a lap…

“I thought I could win it,” he reflected afterwards. “I was hoping I’d be able to get away and that the slower drivers would hold the faster ones up behind. I was pushing the kart as fast as I possibly could, but we just couldn’t keep that initial pace going and the others reeled me in. If it had been the final I would have fought harder to keep second on the final lap, but it wasn’t worth the risk in a heat race.

“In the second heat there were crashes on both the inside and outside in the first corner, and I thought I would just go for it. I kept on it around the outside through each of the first three corners; by the time we got to the chicane I had already made up ten places…”

That kind of performance earned Tom a fighting eighth place from all the way down in 24th on the grid, and he would add to it with a similarly gutsy drive to sixth from 14th in heat three, leaving him a superb fifth on the ‘A’ final grid – and with high hopes indeed.

“We were going really well,” the Xtreme Racing star went on, “getting quicker and quicker throughout the day. I was looking forward to the final, when I would at last be starting on the inside!

“If all went according to plan I thought I would be third by the first hairpin, after which I thought I was quick enough to stay with the leaders and maybe attack them towards the end. But it didn’t go according to plan…”

That would prove to be no understatement, as a chain reaction behind saw Tom get literally pushed across the start-line as another kart went under his rear bumper, lifting the #8 kart up onto its nose with no wheels touching the ground. With his nosecone damaged and scraping on the track, he in turn was driven into the kart ahead of him, the innocent victim of one of his competitors’ over-enthusiasm.

“When we finally got to the first corner I had no brakes, couldn’t turn and ended up going straight into the tyres,” he recounted. “I had to get back onto the track through all the wet grass.”

Not only did that affect his kart’s performance, it also left the Monodraught-backed ace nervous he would receive the black flag because the front was dragging along the ground. Too far back to make up many places, he went on to cross the finish line an understandably disgruntled 17th. A faster lap time than that set by the eventual race-winner just rubbed salt into the wounds by going to show what might have been.

“I thought it had to get better on the Sunday,” he acknowledged. “It was raining, and I’m usually quick in the wet, but that wasn’t to be either. We were down on power and lacking in grip. Where everyone else could point and squirt, I was pointing and wheel-spinning. Out of the corners they were just gone…”

With his kart proving to be a real handful and Tom struggling to slow it down in time for the corners, tenth and eleventh place finishes from the first two heats were the best he could do. A switch back-to-basics in terms of set-up for the third heat – allied to a drying track – produced a temporary improvement and allowed him to claim eighth position – though that still left him down in a disappointed 17th spot on the ‘A’ final starting grid.

“At the start I tried to go around the outside again,” he recalled, “but unfortunately somebody spun right in front of me. I had to come to a complete stop, and work my way back up again after that.

“I knew we weren’t going to be that quick, so I concentrated on preserving the tyres. I hardly turned the wheels going into the corners at all. I’ve been used to turning the kart with my body weight before, and when we came in at the end everybody else’s tyres were all chewed up whereas mine were still fine.

“I knew we were going to be down on the grid for the final, but not that far down. At least when you’re that far back there’s not so much pressure on you. I got a good start and was keeping up with the battle over fifth place and catching the leader. I thought ‘hang on, I could be in contention here’. Then the problems we had with the grip and the power kicked in again and the others increasingly pulled away.”

A 15th-place finish and distant 24th-fastest lap time – more than a second shy of the quickest – bore witness to Tom’s troubles, as he was left to walk away frustrated from a weekend that had seen him drive his heart out for ultimately next-to-no reward. He is refusing to let his head drop, however, ahead of the next round on the Stars’ calendar at Rowrah up in Cumbria towards the end of May.

Despite the problems he faced, he was only out of the top ten once in six heat races at PF – and that was 11th – ensuring he still left Lincolnshire sitting inside the top ten in the drivers’ standings. What’s more, Rowrah is a true drivers’ circuit, where the emphasis is on talent rather than equipment and where the current British Junior Max number eight has traditionally shone.

Evidence of his ability to bounce back was provided in Super 1, with a disastrous first outing – when appalling luck in the heats saw him consigned to the ‘B’ final, from where he was unceremoniously punted out at the first corner – followed by second place in round two at Shenington, his highest national finish at Junior Max level to-date. What’s more, fellow Xtreme ace Max Goff endured a horrendous opening meeting in Stars’ last year, and yet fought back to come within a whisker of clinching the JICA crown in the season finale. With Tom now aiming for consistency – the same approach that saw him sew up the 2006 Mini Max honours – everything is still possible.

“Before the second final of the weekend I was asked if I thought I was still in contention for the championship, and I said yes,” he asserted. “We can drop two finals and six heats, so it’s far from over yet. I’ve just got to have a good round in Rowrah, get some momentum going and then keep it consistent. I love Rowrah – it’s such a great drivers’ track.”

His mechanic Stuart Wright similarly insisted afterwards that ‘we’ll be back’, and only a fool would discount an outfit like Xtreme, but the last word should go to Tom.

“I’m not going to be out in the kart for ages,” he mused, “whereas the others are out pretty much every weekend. That is a disadvantage, but we’ll definitely be on it at Rowrah – all guns blazing.”

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