The East Anglian Trophy is Hunts Kart Racing Club’s signature event. A tall order then for Sam to come back from crashing out from his first event at Kimbolton in April. The weekends racing started on the Saturday after more limited practice sessions than usual. Conditions were good, dry and warm enough, nowhere near as hot as it had been in April. The grid was up to 20 karts for this meeting and Sam qualified to start 16th for heat 1. He made a good start and rose to 13th after 3 laps eventually finishing 12th, this was a good start to the weekend. We returned on Sunday morning for another 3 lap practice and then heat 2. Unfortunately a lap 1 incident with kart 33 (not for the first time) and Sam dropped from 12th to 18th. At race end Sam moved up to 17th after a retirement further up the field.

For the final Sam was now down in 17th on the grid. He got round Freya on the start and avoided a tangle of karts in the first corner to emerge in 15th at the end of the first lap. Sam set about chasing Macie again for the next few laps. Jaz and Charlie came through after their earlier problems but then again on lap 11 and incident gave Sam the chance to move up again to 13th. Oli also got through and passed Sam, so now Freya was chasing Sam into the final laps. Kart 34 passed Freya in the final two laps and pipped Sam right on the line by just 0.18 of a second! That’s just one bad corner exit but Sam still finished a solid 14th Overall and 3rd of 7 novices. Quite a race to watch…time for a lie down!