Historic Karters set Silverstone off in style

The British Historic Kart Club, the UK’s fastest growing kart club, enjoyed a record setting weekend at the recent Silverstone Classic meeting with nearly 100 karts from the 1950’s, ‘60’s, ‘70’s and ‘80’s blasting around parts of the famous British Grand Prix venue in a series of thrilling demonstration runs over the course of the three day bonanza.

In front of thousands of cheering spectators at one of Britain’s biggest historic motor racing festivals BHKC members pushed their equipment to its limits on the section of Silverstone previously known as ‘Bridge’ until the recent redevelopments at the ‘home of British Motorsport.

Several drivers even formed an unlikely alliance with the team from the famous Santa Pod Raceway drag strip with some of the 250cc gearbox class times achieved on the specially designed Silverstone drag strip causing the regular drag racers a few blushes. However when it came to performing some celebratory doughnuts in front of the fans, the drag racers gained a measure of revenge over the karters.

As usual with the British Historic Kart Club it was the machinery that starred with Graham Loakes’ newly restored Barlotti/Villiers and Alex McMurray’s stunning collection of pristine Parilla engines attracting a lot of attention from karters and non-karters alike.

But fittingly at one of the most well respected historic meetings in the world there were also plenty of famous faces in attendance over the weekend including Lake Speed Jr, the son of former World Karting Champion and NASCAR driver Lake Speed, who took time out from his busy career in the United States to step behind the wheel of Chris Arnold’s Techno/GT and BHKC Club Patron Barrie ‘Whizzo’ Williams, who was one of several people who were instrumental in organising the British Historic Kart Club’s participation in the event.

Unsurprisingly considering the recent explosion of interest in historic karting, the BHKC also came away from the weekend with several new members to join the existing 300 strong list including one individual from Holland. With the RetroRacer Series already attracting drivers from England, Scotland, Wales and the Channel Islands, it surely won’t be long before mainland Europe is represented on the grids.

The European contingent will get a sneak preview of what they can expect in the RetroRacer Series in September when they take on Britain’s finest in the European Championships at Whilton Mill on September 11th/12th.

To learn more about the British Historic Kart Club and the RetroRacer Championship please visit  www.britishhistorickartclub.co.uk or  www.retroracer.org