Many of our members here at Midland4stroke know Mark. Hes a Regular PFI and Stretton driver, drives around 3 times a month and also provides all the PFI/3 Sisters race results and points as well! How does he find the time?

So, in the 1st of our Driver in the spotlight series, who better to interview than one of the midlands top Pro-Kart drivers?

Mark:

I've had a mixed season strong start, poor finish. In the PF sprint March opener I qualified on pole by half a second and should have won the final but got held up by backmarkers and finished second. April round I finished third followed by mechanical problems in May. But June I won the MPSC round at PF then a week later won the PF June round, at that point I had a chance of winning the series. But since then things have gone downhill and now I'm only gonna finish 3rd or 4th in the series.
Similar in the 3 Sisters enduro series we started where we left off last season by winning races but lately we've not won for the last 7 races, but 5 second place finishers and a third have helped us to retain the championship.
I've also done some races at Stretton and been reasonably competitive but in general have been 2 tenths off the fastest driver of the day.

Mark:

In 2005 I've been racing 3 times a month so there's not much more I could have done and maybe this has distracted me a bit at PF and have hardly done any testing there this year, but I get bored just driving at PF.

Mark:

Of the 3 tracks I've raced at this year I dont really have any favourites because there all different and thats the point. For me a track is just a track but the main differences have been that PF is a serious sprint championship, 3 Sisters for us has become a serious enduro championship, whilst Stretton is a fun sprint race as I'm not competing in the championship as such, and I guess on that score its been slightly more enjoyable plus there's still a newness for me when I race there.

Mark:

I guess the worst karting moment this year was getting black flagged in the second round at 3 Sisters. We had a bodged pit stop where I came in behind another kart and had to queue, I panicked and sped through the pits and got black flagged. Such was our lead I didnt need to speed anyways and it cost us the win, we finished 3rd. It was beginning to look near the back end of the season when things were getting a bit tight at the top that it might cost us the championship, fortunately it didn't.

Mark:

Yes I would say i've struggled more at Stretton than at the other 2 tracks we've raced at. Hard at this point to know if its kart related or engine related, I think we've done 3 tests, 1st one was wet most of the day, second one we had a moving axle which we didnt find out until after the test, 3rd one we had a engine problem when trying to compare 2 different sets of motors. Of course it could also be driver related, but having done a 31.42s lap round there in a prokart and 31.3s and 31.2s in 2 different Subarus, I have to believe its not me.

Mark:

The kart I use at PF and Stretton is coming upto 3 years old now and is ready for changing. We'll probably get the new MSKart, I think its generally reckoned to be a better kart than the old one. Also something new represents a fresh challenge, like deciding to race at Stretton this year. I cant wait to try it at Stretton next year, however a race ready competitve 7Kart would be also tempting, be able to try and buy something that you can see is already fast. The reason being is I still not sure if my lack of speed is engine related, I know the engines I've been using are a bit weak on the top end so I need to try some older engines, see if they're better around Stretton

Mark:

Plans for next year, plenty it seems. I've got my own plans like another full season in the PF sprint and part seasons in the Stretton Sprint and 3 Sisters enduros. But Carcoon are coming forward with much more sponsorship for enduro races at GYG and some PB enduro races so it looks like I'm gonna be plenty busy, plus maybe 1 or 2 races at Whilton in the open enduros on the Subarus, a class I'm keeping an eye on. No way I could afford to do all this personally, I'm lucky to have a some benifactors.
Regards
Mark