HIGH DRAMA AT THE OPENING ROUND OF THE NKRA & BLUE CHALLENGE 2025
Fulbeck, in Lincolnshire, over the Easter weekend was the venue for the opening round of the 2025 NKRA Regionals, which included the Formula BLUE Challenge. Several of the Veteran and Legend sections of the BLUE Challenge chose to use this Bank Holiday period to test on Friday, giving the ‘body’ a little time to recover from the physically demanding circuit, before the Sunday Races.
On race day, the 1st Heat was won by Harry Smithson ( after Rich Puddle endured a penalty for avoiding a pile-up in the first chicane). David Watts won Heat 2 and Rich Puddle won Heat 3.
The grid for the Final found Puddle sat firmly on Pole position, with 4 points. Harry Smithson was opposite on the front row with 10 points, 1 point ahead of Watts who, equally, was only 1 point ahead of Dean Smithers. The 3rd row was made up of Callum Jobson and Alex Fortune.
On to the Final itself, where Puddle failed to appear, his engine wouldn’t start and he didn’t avail himself of the external starter, not having realised that a broken starter wire was the problem. that moved the whole grid up one place!
One rolling lap was all that was required with a well-formed grid before the lights went green. The experienced Watts took full advantage of his newly aquired front row position to take the lead, one which try and as hard as he could drive, Smithson could not regain. Behind these two, Jobson forged past Smithers into 3rd place. Mike Bell had a meteoric start, going from 9th to 5th, with Nigel Vickery moving up to 10th from 13th.
Into lap two, the situation at the front settled down, though further back Vickery passed Stuart Gray only to be repassed half a lap later. By lap three the front four were racing as hard as they could without making much impression on the racer in front. In 11th place, Ron Shone tagged the rear of Vickery’s Kart , in the chicane, allowing Russell O’Neill and John Hartshorne through on the inside. On lap five, Gray moved up to 9th accounting for Leanne McShane. The race in the middle laps settled down with Watts edging little by little away from Smithson, however, Jobson was slowly closing Smithson down.
The next real action occurred on lap eleven, where Gray managed to pass Tozer. On lap thirteen Shone managed to out-brake Vickery and Hartshorne who were battling with each other, to snatch 12th spot. The last lap and the silencer bracket on the rear of Bell’s kart snapped, allowing Fortune through to take 5th and BillyThomas to claim 6th position. Bell did manage to hang on for 7th over the line. Behind McShane passed Toby Tozer. At the Chequered flag it was a clean win for David Watts from Harry Smithson, Callum Jobson, Dean Smithers and Alex Fortune. In the post-race timing verification, John Hartshorne moved up to 12th position ahead of Nigel Vickery and Ron Shone, who both incurred a front bumper time penalty. Once the start and finish points were added, David Watts takes the Series overall lead from Harry Smithson, Callum Jobson, Dean Smithers and Alex Fortune.
In the Master sub-class, Puddle again secured pole with Watts alongside. Smithers and Fortune held row two with McShane and Thomas on Row three. In the Final Watts won from Smithers with Fortune in 3rd. Thomas and Gray brought up the top five finishers. Overall Watts won with 2 points from Smithers on 5 points. Fortune claims 3rd place with Thomas and McShane taking 4th & 5th.
The Veteran sub-group had Gray, last year’s champion, taking a clean sweep of pole and win. Hartshorne takes 2nd overall by virtue of his higher Final placing. Vickery and Shone take 3rd and 4th, again by their Final result.
In the Legend section, Gray again was dominant with zero points on the day. Hartshorne and Shone share 2nd overall on 5 points.
In the last sub-class, Top Weight, it was Smithers who took full honours with a pole and win. Chasing him home Fortune sits on 4 points with Shone in 3rd on 6 points.
Competitors now have two weeks to re-organise, ensure their entries are in correctly and on time and all their gear cleaned and stowed, ready for the trip to the Lydd for round two of the Championship.
This will be the first scoring round along with the ‘0’ Plates in the various categories.
For the full list of results to date please view the NKRA Menu button / results – OR CLICK HERE