Goodwin forced to battle hard in final ‘08 encounter
Jay Goodwin’s goal as he travelled to his final karting outing of 2008 may have been a simple one – that of victory – but the reality would prove to be anything but straightforward as the young Sale-based star found himself forced to battle all manner of ill-fortune en route to the chequered flag.
Though he had competed at Kimbolton before in the Mini Max class, Jay returned to the Cambridgeshire circuit with a score to settle and a point to prove – and with a wet track surface from overnight rain playing to the Ashton-upon-Mersey ace’s favour, it was a challenge with which he wasted little time in acquitting himself.
“We were aiming to win,” the 11-year-old explained, “because we’d had a few good results leading up to the weekend, so we were thinking this could possibly be our first victory. I had raced there once before in Mini Max, but that hadn’t gone too well, as we’d had really bad heats and then didn’t even make it out for the final.
“In practice the kart felt good – my mechanic Sam had set it up really well – and we were really quick, and we kept that going through to race day.”
Jay’s supreme pace, however, would sadly not be matched by good-fortune, as he found his efforts in his three heat races undone by a scrappy performance in the first of them, a rival turning in on him and snapping the rear bumper off his P1 Racing mount in the second and an opening lap ‘off’ in the third – leaving him plum last on the 24-kart grid for the all-important final…and with nothing to lose.
“I knew all I could really do at that point was try my best,” the St Ambrose College pupil reflected. “We thought it would be hard to get into the top ten from where we were starting, but I got a great start and immediately moved up to 12th place.
“After that I just started picking them off from there really. It wasn’t easy – it’s never easy – and it was made even harder by the fact that the race had been shortened from 12 laps to just seven because we were running out of daylight.
“I still managed to get up to sixth place by the end, though. I think I could have finished fourth or fifth, or maybe even third had the race run to its usual length, but I was still really proud of myself.”
Photo: Chris Manison