A short read into the Daytona InKart Championships.
After putting my all into A-Levels, I began research into affordable, competitive racing. I discovered the Daytona InKart Championships, where for an entry fee only, I get to push racing to new limits against serious competition. I'd been doing outdoor electric karting for years now. Plenty race wins enjoyed, I was ready to show up and murk. I found out the hard way: a championship is a different ball game to open racing.
A wet introduction to Sandown Park (2018), against drivers who had raced there before ... finished first. Came back again, dry track, against an experienced customer and marshal: finished first. I entered the championship in January 2019. 18th? Out of 30 drivers? The disrespect! I look back and don't think that was a bad start for a rookie, but plenty more competitive experiences beforehand meant it did not make sense to me why I was so far off from the front. Yet I thought to myself, I have not started investing into motor racing to quit.
I did not realise at first, but I'm at the heavier end of the lightweight category. Basically, the heavier you are, the slower the propulsion. And weight disparities play a significant factor in navigating club racing, as fellow competitor Henry Walter explains here. The typically Arrive & Drive commercial format means no driver set-up. You get what you're given. In this sense, a pretty street attitude.
So with the tenacity of the streets, I took this as fresh incentive to get active, go for runs, watch my nutrition more attentively ... and (after an even more demoralising Round 2) efforts off-track started to translate on-track.
Setting objectives
Starting off with objectives, I told myself to push for a top 10 finish by the end of the season. I achieved this by Round 3, finishing 10th. Persevering, I revised the objective to finish top 10 consistently, which I did for the next few races, albeit still towards the lower end. Until I was aiming for the podium, come round 7.
In one of the heats, I fended off a significantly faster Finlay Ahmad-Hambling for longer than I expected. A first masterclass on how to hold off a faster kart! Ultimately, not a class I mastered at first attempt as I conceded position onto the final lap to finish 4th.
Then, the final. I started 8th, but kept to the outside into turn 1 to collect three places by the end of the first sequence of corners, capitalising on those congested on the inside. Now settled in 5th, the two drivers ahead, Finley Angell-Wells and Luke Roberts, were battling for the last podium spot, but they weren't pulling away too much. In fact, I could keep up with them! Although lap after lap required no room for error.
The way they were at it, I was half expecting them to spin each other off - somehow they didn't. I settled for 5th, yet only a racy 0.8 seconds away from a first podium! A real confidence boost, reassurance that I was right not to give up in the early rounds.
Debrief
In my rookie season in a karting championship, I went on to finish 6th out of 55 entries, pipping a championship rival by a single point. I also gained 2x fastest lap awards throughout the year, in both SODI and DMAX karts. I quickly converted naive expectations into meeting and exceeding personal objectives, the most efficient way I've learnt to go about progress on and off the racetrack.