It’s once again ‘Junior Spa’ for karts ! We’re back at Paul Fletcher International (PFI), the UK’s largest outdoor karting track in the UK. All the great and the good of the British Karting Championship (BKC) have flocked here for the weekend. We’ve chosen key BKC events in 2025 to hone Nelson’s quali and race skills. PFI will be one of the sternest tests for Orange 91.

Practice started on Friday (and into Saturday). We’re pleased Nelson is posting times in the top 10 of the 35 karters out there, one of just a handful of privateers amongst the established BKC teams.

Quali will concentrate minds, coming down to the average of the driver’s best 3 lap times in a 5-minute stint to secure a grid slot in Sunday’s heats. An uncharacteristic mistake on Nelson’s third flying lap cost him dear, denying him the grid slot his lap times deserve.  There was no time to recuperate. Nelson is relegated to mid-grid for Sunday. He must now take his chances down in the pack.

Sunday’s bright and sunny weather does not dispel the frustration in Camp Nelson.  He barely touches a kart in Heat 1 but finds himself up before the Stewards. Deemed for gaining an ‘unfair advantage’ he becomes the ‘lucky’ recipient of a 5 second pen., dropping him back down the grid. Orange 91’s fastest lap in Heat 1 actually matches the winner’s fastest time, too… but his minor faux pas rewards him with just 25^th in race. Akille, his team mate, got up to 14^th (even with a 3 second pen) with both of them posting top-10 fastest laps.

Heat 2 kick-off was 13.18 hours on Sunday. Track and weather conditions were a repeat of Saturday’s. Unfortunately, so was Nelson’s trip to the Stewards. This time they gave a 5 second pen to the karter who’d punted Nelson off at Turn 3 on the first lap: little consolation for dropping Nelson to plumb last in the race. He clawed a few places back to finish 23^rd, posting a top-5 fastest lap. However, Nelson’s speed wasn’t being reflected in results. Could things only get better ?

It’s 15.31 hours. The Final.11 laps with 35 racy BKC karters. This time Nelson makes an impeccable start, making up several places on the first lap. But, coming into the second lap, the Racing Gods see fit Nelson should be hit so hard his kart’s throttle jams open. It was one of those weekends. Consigned to make a mandatory ‘controlled crash’ to bring the kart to a stop, his screaming engine was cut by the marshalls.  Nelson was left with 9 laps to go sitting in a ‘dead’ kart.

PFI had served its purpose. More lessons learnt, proving that Quali was especially vital to avoiding the mid-pack mayhem. A small mistake, an undeserved pen and two more undeserved ‘offs’ were the sum total of our efforts. Racing can be cruel.  Comtemplative but undeterred, we made for home. We will be back !