Brilliant Callum Bowyer steals second in British Championship at the last 11.10.2009: Callum Bowyer superbly overcame the odds in more ways than one to snatch the runner-up spot in the Lewis Hamilton and Bernie Ecclestone-backed Formula Kart Stars Championship at Whilton Mill, ending the 2009

Callum Bowyer superbly overcame the odds in more ways than one to snatch the runner-up spot in the Lewis Hamilton and Bernie Ecclestone-backed Formula Kart Stars Championship at Whilton Mill, ending the 2009 FKS campaign with a brace of rostrum finishes – but a lack of funding has cast his future in the sport into serious doubt.

The young Peterborough star entered the double-header finale lying fourth in the KF3 class standings, 30 points shy of second and mindful of the ‘nightmare’ he had endured at the Northants track in fellow national series Super 1 earlier in the year, when still on an Intrepid chassis – which he has since changed for an Alonso, with which he is infinitely happier – he had found his kart ‘really hard to control, and whatever we did to it just made no difference’. Though he may admit to not being a huge fan of Whilton, three months on it would prove to be a very different story indeed.

“The bumps make it really unpredictable,” Callum revealed, pointing to the circuit’s most notable feature that can make set-up a real trial. “One lap it can be perfect, and then on the next you hit a bump just inches either way and it throws you off the track. We were pretty much on the pace straightaway, though, and we had a new engine being sent over from Italy which we got in time for the last two practice sessions on the Friday to run it in. That meant we couldn’t work on the set-up with the race engine in immediately, but we were near to the pace even before it arrived – and bang on the leading pace from then on.”

A close second in qualifying on the Saturday to local specialist Macaulay Walsh – whose Ultimate Motorsport team use Whilton Mill as their regular testing track – was an excellent start, and placed Callum respectively two and seven positions ahead of his rivals for second in the championship, Russ Danzey and Ben Barnicoat. He would gain further crucial ground on the pair in both the pre-final and grand final later in the day.

“I was quite pleased with second on the grid,” the 15-year-old underlined. “You can’t grumble about that; three hundredths of a second is next-to-nothing really, and it earned me five extra points over the two drivers I was fighting for second in the championship. Macaulay was really quick all weekend to give him his dues – he was the man to chase throughout. We were always pretty much within the same tenth as each other, with a gap back to third, so I knew we had the pace to drive away from the rest of the pack, which was good.

“The aim at the start of the pre-final was to tuck in behind Macaulay and get in a safe zone, and not make any rash moves because there was a long race ahead. I took the lead early on, though, and tried to get into my own rhythm out front and maybe pull out a bit of a gap – I hoped he might either drop away or else get tangled up behind – but he stuck with me and overtook me again, and in the last few laps he was just able to edge away by half a kart-length a lap. Second was still a good result, though, and we just thought we would go back and try to improve the kart further for the grand final.

“Russ and Xavier Warburton both overtook me on the first lap of the grand final when a bump caused me to put two wheels onto the dust and threw me off the track. I got past Xav pretty quickly, but Russ had found quite a bit of pace for that race and the gap between us was only coming down slowly. I managed to get past him with three laps to go, and because he ended up finishing fifth that meant I gained even more points on him. Macaulay wasn’t really a factor in the championship fight, so all I was focussed on was taking points off Russ and Ben.”

With Callum settling for a second consecutive second place at the chequered flag, the result also all-but reduced the three-way squabble to a two-horse race, as Barnicoat had suffered a disaster, failing to finish inside the top ten in either encounter and dropping effectively out of the equation.

Engine issues in the Sunday morning warm-up was not the ideal way to begin day two, but happily the problem was rectified in time for qualifying – when the Gunthorpe ace set a quite stunning lap time midway through that was comfortably out of reach of any of his rivals, before Walsh pipped him in the dying moments by exactly the same margin that had separated the duo the previous day. Still, another five points for second meant Callum lay just nine behind Danzey heading into the sole race of the day – a gruelling 20-minute, 29-lap final around the most physical circuit in the country that tested drivers’ fitness levels, endurance and concentration to the absolute limit.

“I led for four or five laps early on before Macaulay overtook me,” recounted the Chris Rogers-run speed demon, “and by then I knew Russ had unfortunately stopped out on the track and that we had a big gap back to the rest of the field. Macaulay started to pull away, and I knew I wasn’t going to catch him without taking any silly risks – and I wasn’t prepared to do that, because second in the championship is worth so much more than a single race win. I richened the engine up due to the fact that it was a long race, just to make sure we were ok after what had happened to Russ; that meant we went a bit slower, but equally we were still there at the end.

“It was a really good end to the weekend, with two second places and second in the championship too. Alex Albon had already won the title and congratulations to him for that, but considering the amount of money he was able to throw at it and the amount of time in the kart he had compared to us, I think we can be really proud of what we’ve achieved. We had a good start to the year before it went a bit rocky in the middle with kart issues, but it has all come good again in the end.”

That it certainly did, and despite lacking in both budget and experience in his first season at KF3 level in relation to many of his adversaries, Callum has turned a number of heads in 2009 with his gutsy against-the-odds determination and success, genuinely taking the fight to Albon on a number of occasions and being unlucky indeed to miss out on his maiden class victory at Genk in Belgium when electrical woes intervened.

Now concentrating on the Super 1 finale at Fulbeck in Lincolnshire on October 17/18, he is anxious that the lack of funds against which he and his family have been battling all year do not bring down the curtain on the career of one of Britain’s very brightest young motor racing talents.

“I’ve jumped into KF3 and have come on a hell of a lot as a driver through the year,” the Ken Stimpson School pupil concluded, “so to finish second in the championship against the most respected driver on the grid is brilliant – most people don’t achieve that even after two years! I’m just really looking forward to Fulbeck now. Hopefully it won’t be my last race in karting...”

If you are interested in sponsoring Callum, please contact Tracey Bowyer on 01733 701099 or 07960 400731, or e-mail: callumkf3@hotmail.com


- RA -  photo Chris Walker kartpix.net