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Assen (NL) 2008

250 Div. BSA Championship  

Round  

Report by Ken Walker

Results

David Harvey and Peter Kruse are the Division One Superkart champions for 2008 in the British and the International Superkart series respectively. But those bare statistics don’t even begin to tell the full story of a weekend of high drama at the Assen TT Circuit in Northern Holland .

Once again, as at Germany ’s Nurburgring last year, the two series brought their season to a close in a joint promotion between the Dutch International Superkart Series and the British Superkart Racing Club. The result was a combined entry of 60 superkarts, the maximum permitted on the circuit, and both championships going right down to the last lap of the last race of the season.

The British Championship had five drivers mathematically in contention with two, Dave Harvey and Carl Hume, having their destiny in their own hands. Two wins out of two would give either of them the title. In the International series Germans Peter Elkmann and Peter Kruse arrived on equal points and their championship would be determined by the head to head results over the weekend.

There were two qualifying practice sessions but the first was held early in the morning and the heavy layer of dew across the circuit meant that the second session would inevitably produce the grid positions. Nevertheless Dutch youngster Marcel Maasmann, a late starter into karting, was very impressive being the only driver to break 2 minutes on the wet 4,555 metres TT Circuit.

The second session saw the 2 Germans Elkmann and Kruse qualify for the front row with Kruse taking pole. Row 2 was occupied by Maasmann and John Riley. Dave Harvey did his British championship aspirations the world of good with a 3^rd row start alongside fellow Lincolnshire driver Lee Harpham. In contrast, Carl Hulme (37^th) and Carl Kinsey (41^{st  )} more or less blew their championship hopes away with a disastrous session. Paul Kennings also had it all to do from the outside of the 10^th row.

Race 1

In race one, Kruse had a slightly better start than Elkmann but Lee Harpham was soon in an impressive lead which he was to increase. There has never been any doubt about Harpham’s talent and the speed of his machine. Unreliability has been his downfall but nothing seemed capable of stopping his progress over the 50kms race. The first drama was the early withdrawal of Elkmann with a battery problem and as a result a major boost to the hopes of Kruse. In fact Kruse was good enough to beat everybody he needed to beat, With Harpham not registered in the International series, Kruse’s 2^nd place finish behind the young Englishman was the equivalent of a race win. With Elkman’s non finish, just one scoring point in race two would give Kruse the title.

John Riley made the podium in 3^rd place but Dave Harvey was sitting pretty with a handsome points advantage from his 6^th place despite a stunning drive by Carl Hume from 37^th into the top ten.   But heartache was just round the corner for both race winner Harpham and championship contender Harvey. Both were adjudged to have overtaken a driver under a yellow flag for which each was penalised 30 seconds. Harpham was demoted to 7^th and Harvey to 14^th. Hulme was thereby promoted to 8^th and the British title was still up for grabs.

Race One

Race 2

Immediately after the start of race two Kruse pulled into the pits. Elkmann took the lead and if he could maintain this position he could yet win the international championship. Kruse returned to the track but was back into pit lane moments later and his race was over. Then drama on drama, in contrast to Saturday’s race under blue skies and sunshine, in Sunday’s very wet conditions Elkmann spun round when leading. In a marvellous piece of instinctive driving, he maintained the machine on the tarmac and set off in pursuit of the leaders though now down in 6^th place.

Impressively he pulled back 4 places and was headed only by Britain’s John Riley who was driving a modified Anderson chassis for the first time in wet conditions. But that was as far as Elkmann could go and his praiseworthy 2^nd place behind Riley meant that Kruse took the international title. Trevor Roberts who was never out of the top 3 took the final podium place. They were followed home by Dave Harvey, a result that guaranteed him the British title. In fact in the difficult conditions Hulme could not repeat his previous day’s dash through the field but outgoing champion Paul Kennings went down fighting chasing his successor home in 5^th place.

Mark Vaughan had a good weekend twice being runner up to Division 2 champion Manfred Schmidt in the single cylinder category, and Rob Chilcott despite a non finish in race two had already done enough to secure 3^rd place in the international series.

Dutch motor sports legend Cor Euser made his superkart racing debut finishing downfield in both races but announcing that he had had a great time and would give superkarts another try next season.

Race Two

British Championship Final Classification

International Superkart Series Final Classification

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Last modified: September 02, 2010