HUGS welcomed 14 brand new drivers to the first of 3 rookie sessions at BUMPS, with the intention of easing them into karting before moving on to the bigger tracks. Unfortunately, the first session proved to be a struggle, with the BUMPS staff failing to tell us a couple of ground rules regarding inductees until it was too late, rules which we were unaware of previously despite bringing new drivers to virtually every previous session at BUMPS in recent years. The initial plan was to run an endurance race, but it eventually dissolved into the new drivers having a practice session followed by a race.
Fortunately for the returning drivers, there was a chance to have a practice session whilst the newcomers were being inducted, but with the belief there would have been a race later on, this was a practice session and not a race, and the timing equipment wasn’t switched on, so laptimes were unavailable. One noteworthy incident was a pile-up at turn 1 involving Liam and Adam, a chain reaction followed and Will and Josh ended up in the wall, before the session was stopped so the BUMPS staff could spend their usual half an hour sweeping every last piece of gravel off the circuit.
Following the practice sessions for the newcomers, the drivers were split into an A Final, and then a B Final. The A Final proved to be a race involving several drivers who could potentially be top drivers for HUGS in the future. Paul Greenbaum and Pete Szedlak were particularly impressive, lapping in the 26’s, and had they had more track time would have been a lot quicker. Matt Blankley and Dan Graham also did well, lapping consistently and not crashing, whilst Ozgun Onal suffered kart troubles, preventing him from challenging for a higher position. The same couldn’t be said for a number of drivers in the B Final, as expected there were numerous incidents, though winner of the B Final Rob Stephenson could have easily been on the pace of those in the A Final.
A FINAL
- Paul Greenbaum – 26.81 – 12 laps
- Pete Szedlak – 26.86 - 12 laps
- Matt Blankley – 27.77 – 12 laps
- Dan Graham – 28.07 – 12 laps
- Sam Firth – 29.35 – 12 laps
- Jonathan Wilkinson – 29.76 – 9 laps
- Ozgun Onal – 29.38 – 8 laps
B FINAL
- Rob Stephenson – 32.95 – 11 laps
- Laurel Deegan – 36.51 – 10 laps
- Sal Dinmahomed – 35.54 – 10 laps
- Kae Nightingale – 36.88 – 10 laps
- Aaron Singh – 39.16 – 8 laps
- Pete Dobson – 37.99 – 7 laps
- Yvonne Thomas – N/A – 4 laps