Wayne Ashford Racing

Last weekend I took part in the TKM Festival at Whilton Mill although not in a driving capacity.
The Festival is probably the biggest TKM meeting in the year and features the majority of the entrants from the elite Super 1 series as well as over 60 other entrants making up 84 places in TKM Extreme.
I was working with Chris Kasch and his extra large sideburns for the Friday testing at the qualifying sessions, it would give me an idea of how the really big meetings go.

We spent all of Friday in changeable weather conditions battling up against the rain, reliability problems and Chris's love of the grassy part of the track!

We managed to set a reasonable time but Chris was beating himself up for not bettering his previous PB - a difficult task I thought in the greasy conditions.

Saturday brought some luck and with it the rain, in karting circles Chris is thought to be up there with the likes of Senna, Schumacher and the great Jenson Button - he could be seen doing a strange dance in between the tents on the camp site and chanting away as if he was doing a tribal rain dance... can't think why!

He had suddenly found his mojo and set about improving his pace with each session, when it came to the actual timed qualifying Chris had set 6th fastest time in a group of 25 - considering he was almost 3 times the age of the youngest competitor in his class he was happy with that!

In the first heat Chris finished a very creditable 4th after enjoying a bit of bump and grind with the leading pack - an excellent start to proceedings - superstars indeed....

The second heat didnt go quite according to plan, an inspired choice to go out on slick tyres in the rain looked to be paying off in the drying conditions halfway through the race but after making up a huge amount of places a counter attack by a disgruntled competitor left Chris in a muddy puddle and going nowhere - a real shame as he had every chance of winning his heat!