9 year old Heathhall primary pupil Kieran Conchie began his winter testing with his first ever trip to the PF International Kart Circuit in Lincolnshire. The track is known to be one of the toughest in the country and regularly attracts the UK’s top drivers.
The circuit is located in the village of Brandon, close to Grantham, a long 4 hour drive from Dumfries. Over the years, PFi has developed and grown and is now recognised as the UK’s premier Karting facility.
The track incorporates a bridge with a flyover and the overall track length is 1382m with technical high speed corners that require maximum concentration and commitment.
After a challenging qualifying session on the Sunday morning Kieran started 17th in his pre final and after loosing a few places he managed to fight his way back to 17th. The points scored meant Kieran would start the B-final from 2nd on the grid missing the A-final by 1point. However, all was not lost as a top 4 finish in the B-final would earn a place in the A-final and Kieran had set an ambitious target of making the A-final on his 1st visit to the track. A great launch off the line seen Kieran push away from the pack with another driver to build a comfortable gap and sensibly left it to the last lap to challenge for the lead. After swapping places several times on the last lap Kieran only missed out on the win by 0.03seconds. This result qualified Kieran for the A-final starting in 34th with the rain now starting to fall Kieran was confident he could make up places. With all hands on deck changing to a wet set up the kart arrived on the grid with a very different track to earlier in the day. Kieran made a great start passing 2 drivers and then went on to finish 27th making up 7 places a result he was delighted with.
Kieran tiold DGWGO Sport News “My favourite part of the track was going through the tunnel flat out. The weekend saw me compete in the biggest grid I have ever been in of 45 Hondas so I was extremely proud to manage a finish mid pack on my first time there which I’m told is very difficult on a first visit”.
Kieran would like to thank his family who went down with him and those who couldn’t manage were watching the live internet timing feed and also to Andrew Fairley of Clan racing who travelled from Dunoon to help support with technical advice and driver mentoring.
Follow Keiran on his facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/Kieranconchieracing/?fref=ts
