News & Stories

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5th October 2009.

Ingram signs off season with double score – and vows to go ‘all-out’ for glory in 2010

Promising young High Wycombe motorsport star Tom Ingram ended his maiden campaign of car racing in the Ginetta Junior Championship with a double points score at Brands Hatch – and then vowed to put all that he has learned this year to good effect in 2010 with a concerted assault on title glory.

Tom headed into the finale of the hotly-fought closed-top sportscar series – on the support package for the hugely popular, high-profile and ITV4-televised HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) – aiming simply to remind his rivals that they would do well to watch out for him, having been forced to miss three of the four previous meetings since the mid-season break due to a lack of funding.

A red flag-punctuated opening practice session, however, did little to aid the 16-year-old’s efforts to get to grips with Brands’ celebrated GP circuit, having competed around the shorter Indy layout in the championship curtain-raiser all the way back in April. Still, the fourth-quickest time of the 18 competitors present in sector three hinted at the potential that remained to be untapped.

“We knew the weekend was going to be all about trying to regain some ground really after having missed a few rounds,” reflected the former British Karting Champion, “so we were just aiming to score points and move up the table a bit if we could.

“Unfortunately, in practice people were just pushing too hard, too early and spinning off and crashing all over the place. What I desperately needed was track time to get out there and learn which way the track went to be honest – and not being able to do that was frustrating. Some of the other drivers had been there testing the previous week but we couldn’t afford to do that, so that definitely put us at a disadvantage – we weren’t able to get enough laps under our belt to sufficiently refine the set-up.”

Nonetheless, come the end of the day Tom had improved from 12th overall to an impressive fifth, barely a second shy of the leading pace and only one spot adrift of the champion-elect. That being the case, grid positions of ninth and seventh respectively for the two races fell some way below expectations, particularly as the Booker ace had been third on the timesheets until the very dying moments of the qualifying session, when a number of drivers improved but he didn’t. Worse still, come lights out in race one he swiftly became the victim of some end-of-term over-exuberance.

“At the start I was pushed right the way across the track, nearly into the pit-lane exit wall,” recounted the Conway House Dental Practice, Terry Payne and Joe Bloggs-backed speed demon. “If I hadn’t braked I would have been in the wall! That cost me a lot of places, and then coming out of Paddock Hill Bend into Druids I was again forced right the way onto the grass, which left me boxed out through Graham Hill Bend. I dropped from ninth to second-to-last within the space of just three corners.

“After that my pace was good, but everyone was defending so much that it was difficult to come through the pack and I ended up 13th, though less than a second away from the top ten. I was disappointed because I would have liked to have done a lot better, but that’s racing I guess – it was the last meeting of the year, so there’s always going to be a bit of push and shove.

“In race two I got off the line pretty well at the start and got through Paddock Hill Bend fine, and then heading up towards Druids I managed to get down the inside of a few people, but it appeared that there was more grip on the outside line so a lot of drivers went round there which left me boxed in again. I dropped right the way down the field due to that, but then I just got my head down and concentrated on being aggressive and making moves when I could.

“As it was the end of the season, I thought I would just go for it; there was nothing to lose at that point. I haven’t been able to drive like that for a long time – I’ve always had to be cautious – so it was nice to go out there and not have to worry about what would happen if someone hit me or if I spun. It was good fun working my way back through to seventh, and a really exciting race. I had a few good battles and got past Alex Austin down the inside on the grass through Dingle Dell on the last lap! I had so much momentum I just thought ‘I can’t stop now...’”

Indeed, ‘can’t stop now’ is something of a mantra of Tom’s impressive fledgling career to-date, as he and his family have overcome all manner of financial obstacles to keep him on the grid and showing his mettle right up at the sharp end.

Having missed almost a third of the season due to his shortfall in budget, the reigning Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year can be proud indeed of what he has achieved during his rookie campaign in cars after stepping up from karts – with a podium finish, brace of pole positions and consistently eye-catching drives along the way, en route to an eminently respectable 12th spot in the final championship standings. At times a rollercoaster ride and invariably an experience, looking back, Tom is satisfied – and looking ahead he is already fired-up for the next challenge.

“I don’t think the results we got at Brands reflected the pace we had over the weekend,” he mused in conclusion. “They were just spoiled by the bad luck we had at the start both times. That’s what I know I need to work on the most for next year.

“Since the accidents at Oulton Park and Croft in the summer I’ve had to be really careful to avoid any more damage – it’s always been in the back of my mind that I can’t afford to chuck it off the track – but if we can get together the money we need to come back in 2010, I’ll be able to be a lot more aggressive and really go all-out to win.”

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1st September 2009.

Ingram back on the grid, back on the pace – and back in the points

Following an 11-week absence from the grid that he admitted had been one of the longest waits of his life, Tom Ingram finally returned to action in the Ginetta Junior Championship at Silverstone, and proved that the enforced break had done nothing to either dim his on-track skill or competitive hunger with a brace of strong points-scoring finishes.

A lack of funding had led to the young High Wycombe star having to sit out the previous two meetings at Snetterton and Knockhill – costing him almost 150 potential points, and with that all hope of what had looked like being a superb top five championship finish in his rookie season of car racing. When he rejoined the fray at the celebrated ‘Home of British Motor Racing’, he confessed to a mixture of excitement, anticipation – and just a few nerves...

“I was feeling excited, because I had been out of the car for a while,” Tom revealed. “Silverstone is a great circuit with a lot of history behind it, and I was just looking forward to getting back into the car again and hopefully getting a decent result there. I was a bit nervous going into the first practice session, but I coped with it fine.”

Eleventh-quickest in both Friday sessions as he dialled himself back into the groove, the 16-year-old’s efforts were hampered somewhat by handling and set-up issues caused by a twitchy rear end, but after they were resolved Tom fairly flew, lapping fifth-fastest amongst the 17 competitors in the final practice session on Saturday morning, barely seven tenths adrift of the outright pace.

He would go on to snatch sixth and fourth positions on the grid respectively for the two races in qualifying, meaning that out of 12 attempts, he has now lined up inside the top half dozen on eight occasions – a brilliant record for one of the most inexperienced drivers in the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) support series, and one that proves he is also indubitably one of its fastest learners.

“It was all just about getting back into the car and getting used to it again,” Tom acknowledged, “but that didn’t take too long. I was pleased with my qualifying performance, but afterwards my dad told me that if I’d found just a few more hundredths I’d have been one place higher both times, and the annoying thing was I got demoted to sixth on the last lap. I was happy with the car in general; there were a few things that could have been better, but you just have to drive through that.”

A battling eighth in a ‘boring’ if closely-contested race one – ‘there was just a lot of yo-yoing of positions, but it was a decent result, and we got solid points and no damage’ – made way for a very different second encounter. Out on dry-weather tyres in slippery conditions that even the BTCC pros had struggled in, race two was anything but dull, as the reigning Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year recounted.

“I knew I didn’t really have the pace to be pushing the leader,” he mused of his expectations, “so again I was just hoping for a decent result with no damage. It was my best start of the year so far – I got to the first corner and I was leading it from fourth! I just dived through the middle and then got pushed right up against the pit wall and thought ‘I ain’t backing out of this!’

“I kept my foot in, but then because it was wet and I was the first one to test the conditions – no one knew what it was going to be like, so the leader is always the guinea pig – I got a massive slide on into the first corner and the car stepped right the way out. I lost a load of momentum and a few people were able to jump past me. I was very mindful of not being able to afford any damage, and after that it was just about keeping it on the island, putting decent laps together and keeping out of trouble.”

That he undoubtedly did, and along the way Tom enjoyed entertaining scraps with a number of rivals – most notably namesake Tom Howard – as the Ginetta Junior field scrabbled around for grip and traction with light rain rendering the track surface treacherous. For a long time part of the second-placed tussle, and at one stage the fastest man on the circuit, the former British Karting Champion eventually took the chequered flag less than two seconds shy of the podium in sixth – and stated that he had not enjoyed himself so much in a long time.

“They said ‘as long as you get loads of heat into the tyres on the warming-up lap and keep that heat in them it shouldn’t be too bad’,” the Tockwith Motorsports ace recalled of the conditions, “and it wasn’t to be honest. I just had to keep the power down and drive through it really; it was the same for everybody else, and everyone was sliding about. I had a few scary moments, but at the end of the day we finished.

“It was a really good battle with Tom – we were swapping places nearly every corner! I was a bit annoyed, admittedly, because I thought if we hadn’t been battling we could maybe have caught up to the pack in front, but regardless of that we still had a good, clean race between us. We didn’t touch once, and that’s how racing should be.

“The whole thing could have gone any way to be fair – all you needed was for one driver to have a slip-up at the front and chuck a few people off. Saying that, someone did spin right in front of me on one of the laps which mucked my momentum up. The most important thing was that we got another good, solid result and stayed out of trouble. At the end of the day I’m really pleased. I’ve come away with two decent results, good points and no damage to have to pay for, which is one thing off our minds now.”

Indeed, with budgetary limitations ever at the forefront of his family’s concerns, the importance of keeping his car in one piece at all costs can scarcely be underestimated, and looking ahead now to the penultimate meeting on the 2009 calendar at Rockingham on September 19/20th, more of the same is the clear goal. Whilst fifth spot in the final drivers’ standings is still mathematically within reach, at just eight points adrift of ninth, Tom recognises that a top ten finish is now a more realistic target.

“We’ve got three weeks to scrabble together enough funding to be able to go to Rockingham,” concluded the Joe Bloggs, Conway House Dental Practice and Terry Payne-backed speed demon. “Fingers crossed, we might be able to get there, but we still need some more money to be sure. I’ve done ten laps round there in a T-Car, and it’s a fantastic track to drive. You’ve got the tight, twisty bit which is quite narrow, and then you go onto the ‘oval’ section and there are just massive banks, which were designed for IndyCar-style cars.

“At the beginning of the year I was hoping for a top five or six championship placing, but now after we’ve missed two rounds I think it’s more sensible to aim for a top ten.”

For a driver looking increasingly like the complete package – his racecraft has always been peerless, his qualifying in Ginettas is excellent and now he has mastered the starts too – it seems the pieces of the jigsaw are all beginning to fit into place. Watch this name – Tom Ingram has a very bright future ahead of him indeed.

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Thursday 20th August 2009

Cash strapped Ingram desperate for funding to get back on-track

Following a dream start to his fledgling car racing career – with a podium in only his second meeting and a double pole position in his fourth – Tom Ingram’s greatest nightmare has unfortunately reared its ugly head, as a funding shortfall has forced the former British Karting Champion out of the latest two rounds of the Ginetta Junior Championship.

After firmly establishing himself as the leading rookie in the hotly-fought closed-top sportscar series – on the support package for the high-profile, hugely popular British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) – Tom headed for the mid-summer break ready to regroup and come back even stronger still over the second half of the campaign. Sadly, having had to miss both Snetterton – where he had shown well in pre-season testing – and Knockhill up in Scotland, he has not yet had the chance.

“It’s been awful,” lamented the young High Wycombe star. “We went into the mid-season break and had a stand at the High Wycombe Motorshow to try to raise some sponsorship, but despite receiving a lot of interest, in the following six weeks we haven’t been able to raise a penny. That’s been a bit disheartening, because we had been expecting to find something at least. As the weeks passed we got more and more dispirited; we had work we needed to do on the car, and with every passing week the time was ticking down.

“I’d really enjoyed Snetterton on the test and media day, and a lot of people had told me Knockhill would suit my driving style too, because it’s another circuit like Oulton Park, where I got the double pole. It’s very tight, twisty and undulating, and it always looks fantastic on TV. We actually thought we would be going to Knockhill until four days beforehand. That was particularly tough, because I had really got myself excited about returning to the car, and then it just all fell flat again.

“The hardest thing for me was watching the racing on TV and following the results online – that’s made it even worse. I was wondering where I might have been if I’d been there, thinking ‘if only’... That’s the part that hurts the most, but you can’t let yourself get upset about it. At the end of the day, that’s just life, isn’t it?”

Requiring in the region of £1,500 per weekend and a total of £5,000 to complete the season – in which he still, miraculously, sits only just outside the top ten in the title standings despite missing out on as many as 156 points – Tom admits that backing from the likes of Conway House Dental Practice and former Monodraught managing director Terry Payne has helped, but more, far more, is still needed.

Hoping to be able to finish with a flourish to set himself up in style for a concerted championship charge in 2010, the 15-year-old reigning Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year is adamant that far from disadvantaging him when he finally does get back into the cockpit again – hopefully at Silverstone at the end of August, funding permitting – the 11-week absence will in fact make him more fired-up for glory than ever.

“When you say you require sponsorship, people always think you’re talking about millions of pounds,” Tom confessed, “but to us it’s just about thousands or even hundreds – whatever anyone can do makes a real difference.

“Now what I really want is to be able to race at Silverstone. It’s the home of British motor racing, I’ve seen it on TV so many times and I would just love to drive there. It’s a proper Formula 1 circuit and the home of the British Racing Drivers’ Club (BRDC), so to race there would be fantastic.

“After missing two meetings, I really just want to get back into the top five again, set pole positions and fastest laps and get as many points on the board as I can. I’ve had a lot of bad luck, so am just aiming to score points if I’m honest – points make prizes. If I’m honest, being out of the car for so long will only make me even more hungry to succeed..

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Monday 27th July 2009

Ingram storms through the spray on one-off return to karting roots

He may now be a regular front-runner in his maiden campaign of car racing competition, but exciting young High Wycombe star Tom Ingram ably reproduced the kind of form that saw him crowned British Karting Champion in 2006 on a one-off return to his roots at Milton Keynes’ Daytona Raceway.

Enjoying a well-deserved mid-season break from the Ginetta Junior Championship – in which he is currently placed as top rookie, having already turned a number of heads in impressively achieving his breakthrough rostrum finish and pole positions – Tom was approached by Race Drivers Inc. (RDI) with a view to participating in a special, Red Bull Racing-backed Summer BBQ and Race Day alongside sportscar ace Chris Dymond, single-seater specialist Ollie Millroy and former karting sparring partner Alice Powell amongst others. He didn’t need asking twice.

“I was contacted about it the week beforehand, completely out-of-the-blue,” explained the Booker-based 15-year-old, who is backed by Joe Bloggs and Conway House Dental Practice. “I received an e-mail from the RDI explaining what they do and what the event would involve; they said there would be a showcase race, and would I like to be a part of it?

“I was really keen straightaway, and there was no cost to us either, which given our financial situation was obviously the most important thing. We went along and it was brilliant fun! I hadn’t been out in a kart in ages, but it was good to meet a lot of drivers I didn’t know before, and a good way of trying to promote the sport.”

Following just three practice laps to adjust to his restricted Rotax Max-style mount – not a million miles away from what Tom had raced in his last year of karting in 2008 – the Tockwith Motorsports speed demon qualified third in the ten-strong field of professional drivers, behind pole-sitter Dymond and Powell. Visibly back in the groove with ease, any notions that the 15-minute race was to be a purely ‘friendly’ encounter swiftly disappeared out of the window.

“I really wanted to do well, and secretly I’m sure everyone else did too!” revealed the reigning Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year with a grin. “I was there to have a good time, but you can’t tell a racing driver not to go out and try to win!

“I hadn’t raced at Daytona since I was eight, but it was always one of my favourite tracks when I was in karting; it’s quite fast and flowing, with tight and twisty sections too. Given I hadn’t been out in a kart at all since last September it wasn’t easy, but it only really took me about two laps to get back into the swing of it. It was good fun climbing back into a kart – you realise how easy they are to hold onto compared to a car!

“In the race we went out in the pouring rain on slick tyres! It was a rolling start, and Chris, Alice and I got a break in the first few laps. Alice and I passed each other a few times, and I was thinking ‘why are we doing this? Chris is getting away...’ She then made a mistake into the first turn, which held me up a bit, and I couldn’t get past properly until the following corner. I went up the inside and held her out wide, but by that time Chris had built up a bit of a lead.

“After the first four laps I began to peg that gap, and with the times tumbling as the track dried out I was closing and closing on him. When I came over the top of the hill for the final time and saw the chequered flag being readied, I got an awesome run on Chris and got into his tow.

“I then went for a mega lunge of a lifetime into the last corner, real do-or-die. I was about five or six kart-lengths back and just launched it up the inside of him, but because it was still very wet off-line I couldn’t slow down quickly enough on the exit. It was worth a go, though...”

Indeed it was, and as he lapped on occasion as much as two seconds quicker than his quarry on the treacherous track surface and came away with the fastest lap time for good measure, it provided proof positive that Tom’s karting talents have far from deserted him, even after almost a year away from the category. What’s more, the winner had competed at Daytona only a handful of weeks beforehand in an endurance outing, and reflected afterwards that had the race continued just one more lap, it would likely have been a different driver on the top step of the podium.

“Tom drove a great race,” Dymond acknowledged. “I was able to pull away at the start as he was battling with Alice, but he reeled me in and was very close at the end. At only 15-years-old, I was impressed. He clearly has a bright future in the sport.”

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16th July 2009

Ingram sharpens his teeth with dental sponsorship boost

Rising young High Wycombe motorsport star Tom Ingram has received a boost off the back of his polished performances in the Ginetta Junior Championship over the first half of 2009 – in picking up sponsorship from West Wycombe Road-based Conway House Dental Practice, whose owner Stephen Robinson believes the highly promising teenager possesses the talent and potential to make it all the way to Formula 1.

Tom has enjoyed a superb start to his fledgling car racing career after making the considerable step-up from karts – in which he was crowned British Champion in 2006. A brace of pole positions, a podium finish, the seventh-best qualifying average of any driver in the 24-strong field and the status of comfortably top rookie in the British Touring Car Championship-support series have all singled the 15-year-old out as a driver to watch over the coming months and years. Mr. Robinson clearly agrees.

“I had thought about doing it a year ago,” explained the self-confessed petrol-head, who takes part in occasional track days himself. “Tom has been a patient of mine for the past five or six years, and I always talk to him about how his racing is going. I’ve followed his career progress since he was in karts. I actually prefer watching the Ginetta Juniors than I do the touring cars that are supposedly the main show – I see the BTCC as just the build-up really!

“Reading the reports on him in the newspaper, I realised he and his family were having quite a tough time. When he got pole position at Oulton Park and was then taken out in the first race, I thought I would see if I could help the little lad out and maybe do some good. I say little lad, but of course he’s taller than me now – when I first knew him he was a lot shorter than me!

“Tom has made amazing progress. As a rookie you would think he should be down somewhere in the mid-pack, but instead he is right up there fighting with the experienced guys. He’s been very impressive, and I’m really chuffed for him.

“Money looks like being the biggest issue for him, whether he goes down the tin-tops route or, who knows, ultimately makes it to Formula 1. A lot of it is about being in the right place at the right time, but if he keeps getting his name out there like he’s doing at the moment, I do think Tom can go a long way. I’m sure he will have a career in motorsport whatever happens. It would be nice if he ends up in F1 – he’s good in front of the TV cameras from what I’ve seen, and it’s clear he’s got the talent for it. He’s the whole package.”

Mr. Robinson is hoping to go and see Tom in action in the Brands Hatch finale later this year with his three equally motorsport-mad sons, but before then the reigning Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year has outings at Snetterton in Norfolk, Knockhill in Scotland, celebrated ‘Home of British Motor Racing’ Silverstone and Rockingham in Northamptonshire.

There is, however, now barely a fortnight left until Snetterton, and the bright red #80 machine is still bearing the battle scars from a bruising last outing at Croft, when after qualifying an excellent third, Tom was knocked from behind on the opening lap and tipped into a spin in front of the oncoming pack. That caused significant damage which has yet to be repaired, and with finances tight as ever the Tockwith Motorsports speed demon’s appearance in round six is not assured.

“After Oulton Park where we had the mega qualifying result, Stephen contacted us and said he had been thinking about sponsoring me for a while but just hadn’t got round to doing anything about it,” explained the Wye Valley School pupil, who regularly fills his dentist in regarding his on-track exploits.

“Stephen does like his cars, and he said he has been going on my website and watching me on the box – and he came along to see us at the Wycombe Motorshow too. He saw I had sold my mountain bike to be able to carry on racing, and he said he wanted to help out if he could, which is brilliant. I’m really grateful for his support and the belief he and the practice have shown in me.

“Finances have always been an issue for us, and whilst this obviously helps we still need more to be able to carry on. The car is still in the same shape as it was when we got back from Croft; we just haven’t had the money to do any work on it yet. We need £270 for a new radiator, £480 for a new bonnet, £200 for new tyres, tracking and the back end needs re-doing too. I just hope we can carry on.”

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Monday 22nd June 2009

Ingram confirms front-runner status as Ginettas head for mid-season break

Tom Ingram underlined his status as one of the very brightest young motorsport talents Britain has to offer with another front-running performance in the Ginetta Junior Championship at Croft – but for the second meeting in a row, the High Wycombe star left counting the cost of significant damage from an incident that was not his fault.

Tom headed to the North Yorkshire circuit off the back of a rollercoaster ride at Oulton Park, where he had stormed to a stunning double pole position in qualifying – in just his fourth outing in cars since graduating from karts, with the title of British Karting Champion to his name in 2006 – only to be unceremoniously removed from the action when he found himself unwittingly caught up in another driver’s accident on race day that tore the front end of the #80 machine apart and left his family and Tockwith Motorsports team facing an all-night repair job.

That meant his aim for Croft – one of a majority of tracks on the calendar of which the rookie had no previous experience – was to secure a solid haul of points, and after proving to be a top ten fixture throughout practice, he wound up an impressive sixth-quickest at the end of the opening day amongst the slightly depleted 18-strong pack, barely six tenths of a second shy of the top spot.

From there, the 15-year-old headed into qualifying with high hopes – and third and fourth positions on the grid for the two races, just half a second from pole, would not disappoint. His supreme consistency, indeed – one of his qualities right the way through karting – saw his two fastest efforts separated by a mere two thousandths of a second, and it is consistency, at the end of the day, that wins championships.

“After the shunt at Oulton we were just trying to get some points back,” he acknowledged. “Of course I wanted to finish as high as I could, but the primary goal was to get some more points on the board. The steering was still a tiny bit out, but there’s nothing you can really do about that and you’ve just got to drive around it. I didn’t feel like it was hindering me at all, and that apart the car felt really good.

“I had been watching YouTube beforehand to try to learn the track a bit. Although it’s quite tight and twisty, it’s still flat-out in places too; there are a lot of corners where you need to be late on the brakes and make sure you get the apexes spot-on. It’s quite a complicated circuit to learn at first.

“Practice was a good start, but no-one really looks at the timesheets in testing and I wasn’t entirely sure what we could do in qualifying – after the double pole at Oulton, nothing was ever going to be as good as that! I was just aiming to get a decent starting position really from where to battle for points; I was hoping to be inside the top five, but it was still quite a surprise to get third and fourth.”

It also meant that Tom has now qualified inside the top four more times than not during his fledgling car racing career to-date, with six top four starts from ten races and an average grid position of 7th, an incredible achievement given his comparative lack of experience relative to the opposition, many of whom are in their second year in the series. And the first race at Croft would only serve to corroborate that scintillating form...

“I got a blinding start and jumped straight through the middle of the two Tollbar cars on the front row and into second,” he related. “I then got into the tow of Aaron Williamson in the lead and was going to try and make a move into Tower, but he defended too well. After that I just concentrated on trying to keep my speed up to maintain the pressure on him, but on the next lap Jake Hill got past me, which dropped me to third.

“I was lining him up to get him back again, but then I lost two more places at the last hairpin – one driver came through and because that pushed me off-line another was able to follow. After that I had (championship leader) Sarah Moore about a second-and-a-half behind me for the whole race, always in my mirrors, and I knew if I made just one small mistake she would be on me, so I had to try and focus on not making any slip-ups whilst closing on the guys ahead at the same time.

“On the penultimate lap the leader Chris Swanwick went off at Sunny Out, which gave us all a run on him. Thomas Howard went down the inside of him and I tried to do the same, but I wasn’t quite close enough to make it stick and we both ran slightly wide and lost a bit of momentum. At the same place on the last lap Swanwick got Howard back again, and then going into the final hairpin they were both defending really hard.

“I was hoping they would knock each other wide, and in any case I knew I was probably going to get a better run than at least one of them out of the hairpin. I managed to draft Howard over the line by less than four hundredths of a second... I was pleased, but at the same time a little bit disappointed because I would have liked to have got another podium after making such a good start.”

Nonetheless, just 2.7 seconds shy of victory at the chequered flag marked the closest he has been to the winner to-date, and as in qualifying he crossed the line as the best-placed of the six Tockwith competitors. A rostrum finish was firmly in his sights in race two, but then disaster would strike, with a nudge from behind on the opening lap leading to the reigning Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year’s car being collected by another, damaging the rear end, radiator and water pipes and leaving the bonnet in four pieces. The misfortune prompted championship co-ordinator Stewart Linn to muse that Tom must be the unluckiest driver in the field, having twice now seen his car destroyed through no blame of his own.

“I think this is the most DNFs I’ve ever had!” rued the Monodraught, Joe Bloggs and Conway House Dental Practice-backed ace. “You can get away with damage a lot more in karting – it’s not so easy in cars. Overall, though, I think it was a good weekend, because again I showed I’ve got the pace to be up there.”

He unquestionably has, and not only that, but sitting eighth in the title standings halfway through the campaign – with a seven-week break now until round six at Snetterton in early August – he has thoroughly transformed himself from a lower-to-mid-grid challenger on his debut to a regular podium contender scarcely two months on, punching well above his weight. By any standards, that is a truly remarkable feat – and one that has given his rivals considerable food for thought over the summer recess.

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Tuesday 4th June 2009

Rollercoaster weekend for pole star Ingram at Oulton Park

Tom Ingram experienced a real rollercoaster of emotions in the latest Ginetta Junior Championship meeting at Oulton Park, storming to an double pole position in only his fourth-ever outing in cars only to be wiped out of contention minutes into his opening race.

Despite having featured consistently inside the top three on the timesheets around the undulating Cheshire circuit in pre-weekend testing, the young High Wycombe driver was unsure as to whether he would even be racing at all due to severe budgetary concerns, but with funds having been scraped together at the eleventh hour, he was able to take to the track in qualifying.

What’s more he picked up from where he had left off on the test day b y setting fastest time, and by the a decent margin, nearly half a second for race two.

“The track is just awesome!” enthused the former BRDC Stars of Tomorrow British Karting Champion. “Nearly every other corner is blind and going over the top of a hill. It’s definitely a drivers’ circuit which is what I like, and we had been amongst the very quickest on the test day so I was feeling pretty confident going into the weekend that I could do fairly well.

“Obviously I wanted to get pole, but I never actually thought I would – to end up there was amazing! You never have an absolutely perfect car – you always have to compromise somewhere – but we changed it a bit more after practice and that just seemed to transform it. I was able to carry a lot of speed into the corners and I was consistently quickest and on pole for near enough the whole session, and never out of the top two.

“When I came over the line and saw the chequered flag and P1 on my pit board, I was just over the moon to be honest. Any advantage you’ve got is always good, but half a second was more than I’d been hoping for, and to know I had that under my belt was really satisfying. All the leading names were there, so to qualify on pole in my first season I thought was pretty good really.”

Considering his lack of experience in the series and time in the car, it was truly a remarkable feat, and one that proved he is getting to grips with his car and surroundings. Moreover, it meant that his usually stated ambition of a top ten finish went out of the window for race one, before a tardy getaway dropped Tom down to third when the starting lights went out.

Heading into the second lap trying to regain his advantage, disaster struck! Exiting Cascades and accelerating away up Lakeside straight, leader Pippa Coleman clipped the kerb and spun broadside across the track – leaving the driver of the pursuing Monodraught and Joe Bloggs-backed #80 machine with literally nowhere to go.

“The more seat time you can get the better it’s going to be,” Tom underlined. “That’s what you need to be able to improve at the end of the day. I now know I can brake later in the car and it’s not going to let go on me. It’s all about gaining trust in the car, and knowing you’re not going to throw it off the track if you brake at a certain point.

“We knew we had the pace for the races, and I thought as long as I didn’t make too many mistakes, I would be there or thereabouts. I didn’t feel too much pressure because nobody expected me to be up there; I was just nervous about having the opportunity and not wanting to mess it up, but unfortunately at the start I picked the clutch up too soon and bogged down off the line.

“The top three of us broke away a bit, and going through Old Hall for the second time, Jake Hall ahead of me made a bit of a mistake and clattered the kerb. I got the run on him and went for the inside into Cascades, but he chopped across my nose so I decided it would be safer to back off. Pippa then dropped it on the exit of the corner, and I didn’t have any time to react.

“It’s one of the fastest parts of the circuit at 90 or 100mph, so the car is already unsettled going through the corner and sliding and bouncing about. Pippa went one way and then the other, and I couldn’t avoid her. I had nowhere to go; you’ve got a thousandth of a second to make a decision, and when you’ve got a car going across the track in every direction right in front of you, you just don’t know which way to go. I don’t blame Pippa, because it’s hard to say what I’d have done in the same situation with 21 cars all coming towards me flat-out.”

Whilst understandably shocked, Tom was thankfully otherwise unscathed by the hefty impact, but if his was far from the only badly damaged car on a tumultuous weekend, then his family are arguably the least well financially-equipped to deal with it – and the consequences were devastating. The bonnet, radiator, wishbone, steering rack, steering column, chassis and centre console were all barely recognisable, and the gearbox had been pushed forward to where the gear lever should have been. When he went to bed to try to shut the incident out of his mind, nobody would have predicted that the Tockwith Motorsports driver would be out again to race the following day – but he was.

“To fix it in time for the next day I thought was pretty amazing,” he reflected. “When I went to sleep the car was in bits, and I had been all up for racing around the track on foot to be honest! People were up working until the early hours of the morning on my car, and for everyone to pitch in like that was incredible. You don’t expect everybody to just drop everything and help you like that, but they did. They said ‘we will get this done’, and they just worked and worked and worked. I want to say a huge thank you to Simon, Martin and Shaun for all they did.”

Though the car was far from the machine in which he had achieved pole position, Tom did exactly what was asked of him on day two, keeping out of trouble and staying with the lead scrap despite handling difficulties to take the chequered flag a competitive seventh in a flawless display of damage limitation.

“The car didn’t feel good,” recounted the reigning Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year. “Everything was working, but the steering was at completely the wrong angle, which meant that if I let go the car would drift to the left. We finished working on it with barely 20 minutes to go, and after that it was just a case of shut up and get on with it really.

“Every time someone went for a move on me I was just thinking ‘please don’t take me out!’ Given what the car had looked like after Saturday’s race, anything was an accomplishment to be honest. To get the car onto the grid in the first place was pretty good, and we got some points on the board too so we did the job.

“Despite the accident, overall it was a good weekend, and to be able to say I got pole in only my fourth-ever car meeting was pretty good. My goals have definitely changed now. Back at the beginning of the year if I’d finished seventh I would have been very happy, but now it’s disappointing.”

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Monday 27th April 2009

Ingram ‘over the moon’ with podium in fourth-ever car race!

High Wycombe star Tom Ingram admitted to being overwhelmed at having stormed to the maiden podium finish of his fledgling car racing career in only his fourth outing in the televised, British Touring Car Championship-supporting Ginetta Junior Championship at Thruxton, as the former British karting champion belied his lack of experience to take the fight to the front-runners around the fastest and most fearsome track in the country.

Off the back of a confidence-boosting test day, Tom entered the weekend with high hopes of building on the eighth-place finish he had achieved on his debut at Brands Hatch three weeks earlier – and he did so in considerable style.

After qualifying a superb third amongst the 22-strong field for race one and seventh for race two – having indeed held pole position for much of the session – the Monodraught and Joe Bloggs-backed ace went on to duel energetically with fellow karting graduate and Tockwith Motorsports team-mate Carl Stirling in the opening encounter, before ultimately getting the better of the Irishman to take the chequered flag in a wholly unexpected fourth place, despite suffering a slight scare along the way...

“Aaron Williamson ahead of us got a tank-slapper on,” the 15-year-old recounted. “He lost the back end and was practically out in the field. In that kind of situation, though, the momentum carries you back onto the track, and as Carl and I went left to avoid him his car snapped left too. That forced us both onto the grass, and right as I was going past Williamson – flat-out and sideways on full opposite-lock on the grass – his car suddenly swung towards me again, before I came bouncing back onto the track again.

“There was a huge tyre wall coming up ahead of me, but I thought ‘I’ve done all this hard work, I’m not giving it all up for this’ and I managed to hold onto the car using what I had learned on the skid pan up at Tockwith. It did get a tiny bit hairy for a few moments...”

If it was a remarkable save, it was an even more remarkable result, and left Tom vowing to go better still in race two. The Booker-based speed demon would be every bit as good as his word, engaging in a fraught tussle with David Moore that tested both his nerve and his mettle to the absolute limit.

“I got a mega run on David and got him going across the line to begin the final lap,” he recalled. “I was once told that the last thing you want at Thruxton is to be just ahead of someone going into the last lap because of how much potential there is for slipstreaming round there, and I think that lap was pretty much the longest I can ever remember! David was putting pressure on me like you wouldn’t believe – I couldn’t see anything in my mirrors except for his car just swerving all over the place trying to find a way by!

“He had a lot of pace and I kept expecting him to stick his nose up the inside – he couldn’t have been more than about a foot away from the back of my car for the whole lap, which meant I had to concentrate on not putting a wheel out of place whilst trying to both defend and attack at the same time! He was just pushing and pushing and pushing, and if I had missed a single apex or missed a gear by a fraction or had a single slide he would have got me.

“We came across a backmarker in the last corner of the lap and I managed to force David to take the outside line around him. I went over the line screaming inside the car – I reckon they must have heard me on the pit wall; I was just going mad! The whole team was really pleased for me and I was over the moon with the result – and kind of shocked too to be honest. I’ve always said that if I could get a podium by the end of the season I would be happy, and we got one in just our second weekend out...”

Tom now sits an excellent fourth in the championship chase with two of the ten rounds completed, and top rookie heading next to Donington Park on 16-17 May

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Monday 6th April 2009

Multiple karting champion Ingram stuns with top ten finish on car racing debut

Multiple karting champion Tom Ingram belied his lack of experience and seat time to storm to a superb eighth-place finish on his car racing debut in the closed-top sportscar Ginetta Junior Championship at Brands Hatch – and now he cannot wait to get out there again and work his way even further up the pecking order.

The High Wycombe star may have secured no fewer than 13 major titles over the course of his impressive eight-year karting career – including the same one that first set none other than a certain Lewis Hamilton on the fast track to future Formula One glory, Formula Kart Stars – but heading into his maiden season of car racing, he knew that he was on a different learning curve altogether.

Aside from the pressure of racing in front of 30,000-plus crowds on the support schedule for the popular and high-profile British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) – with the glare of ITV television cameras all-too apparent – there was also the small matter of the fact that Tom had only enjoyed the very bare minimum of testing ahead of the weekend, and had never driven around Brands prior to his first lap in practice. That made him one of – if not the – most inexperienced drivers in the field.

“I didn’t know the track at all beforehand,” he conceded. “I’d only watched laps of it over and over and over again on YouTube to try and gauge how it went. I just had to learn it and get myself confident. You can always do with more time in the car – you can never have enough seat time – and we’re up against it a bit because only those drivers aged 16 and over can go testing on track days.

“I’d never realised how steep Paddock Hill Bend was before! It’s completely blind – you go over the first bit and think that’s it, and then all of a sudden it just drops. Your stomach hits the floor, and then you go up another huge hill and down again. Seeing it from the outside and driving it are two completely different things.

“The car moves around a lot on the track; you’ve got to be prepared for anything to happen, checking your mirrors all the time and watching for other drivers trying to come up the inside. There were so many people there watching too, but I think if you allowed yourself to think about that then it would be constantly on your mind. It was just about making sure I concentrated on what I was there to do rather than on trying to look good in front of all the crowds. You just need to shut all of that out.”

As if that wasn’t enough to deal with, a misfire throughout his first free practice session left the 15-year-old’s car firing on only three cylinders, refusing to pull whenever he got on the throttle and – in Tom’s words – ‘undriveable’. As an exercise in learning where the circuit went, it paid dividends, but in terms of chasing lap times it was of little use. With the problem cured for the second session, however, he began to get more comfortable inside the cockpit, and more au fait with what gear to be using and where to brake when.

Lapping around 16th or 17th-quickest in the 20-strong pack – eight of whom are second-year drivers in the series – he headed into the 15-minute qualifying session with increased confidence, but his efforts would be frustratingly disrupted by a red flag halfway through.

“The lap on which the red flag came out was looking like being my quickest,” the reigning Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year recounted. “I had hit every apex perfectly and got every corner spot-on. I was just about to go over the finish line when the red flag came out, so that was pretty annoying.

“Three drivers did get across the line before the flag and went quicker than me. I had been 11th or 12th pretty much all the way through the session – the last pit board I saw said I was 11th – so to come in and be told I had fallen back to 14th was disappointing.”

Be that as it may, the outcome of qualifying left Tom even more fired-up to make amends in the races, though his first one would be hampered initially by an ‘awful’ start – as the legacy of his lack of pre-season testing time proved to be telling.

“On the grid ahead of the race I was really, really nervous,” he confessed, “worrying about pulling up in the wrong place or stalling and looking stupid. Luckily I didn’t do either! The bad start put me further behind, though, and someone else nearly got past at Paddock Hill Bend heading towards the hairpin. I thought ‘you’re not going to do that’, so I held him out and then had to defend my place for a bit.

“After that I just got my head down, and there were a few drivers ahead battling, which allowed me to catch up a little bit. Oliver Llewelyn was in front of me and I was slowly reeling him in, and I was right on him when the safety car came out. When I saw the lights go out on the safety car – knowing that meant it was going to return to the pits again – I bunched right up behind him and managed to dive past into Paddock Hill Bend, which I don’t think he was expecting or had seen coming at all.

“That was quite satisfying; he has been racing in the championship for the past two years, and I managed to outwit him in my first race. I was a bit annoyed with the end result of 11th, though; if I had got my start right I reckon I would have been able to get tenth, because the group in front of me on the last lap after the safety car had gone in weren’t getting away.”

Nonetheless, it was a hugely encouraging start, and just one place shy of Tom’s stated pre-weekend ambition of a top ten finish. With the diagnosis of an overly-stiff rear shock absorber, though – an ailment that caused the car to ‘wallow’ through the corners – the handling of the #80 machine was transformed overnight, and immediately gained its driver more than half a second in terms of lap time.

“One of the mechanics told me afterwards he didn’t know how I’d kept it on the circuit,” related the Monodraught and Joe Bloggs-backed ace . “I could feel the difference straightaway on the warm-up lap; it was such a dramatic change. I was immediately able to get into the 59s bracket, something I hadn’t done all weekend. We were six tenths quicker than we had been on Saturday, and if I had just got into the tow of the cars ahead we could probably have picked up another two or three tenths from that, or perhaps even more.

“My start was better in race two, and there were a couple of spinners on the first lap ahead of me. I then just focussed on catching other drivers and picking them off. I would get the run on someone and then force them out wide, and took advantage of other people’s mistakes.

“I had Carl Stirling in my mirrors from lap one. I knew if I made just one slip-up he would get past me, so I concentrated on not making any mistakes and managed to keep him behind me. I was able to break the tow later in the race when I got past a driver in front straightaway and Carl didn’t, which gave me some breathing space. The only annoying thing at the end was that I was gaining on Max McGuire ahead too until he got a tow from the drivers in front of him, and when that happens it’s so difficult to catch them again.”

That frustration – despite the fact that Tom had exceeded his expectations with eighth place – betrays the teenager’s fierce ambition, lack of experience or no. Indeed, by rights he should have been classified seventh as the recovering Jake Hill passed him under a yellow flag on the final lap but went unpunished, but regardless, the excitement in his voice at the end of the weekend was palpable.

“I’ve got to be honest – I already like this so much more than karting!” he enthused. “It was a great atmosphere, and you really feel like a proper racing driver; people have paid money to come and watch you race.

“A lot of people said I had done really well, and apparently on the TV commentary they said I’d be one to watch later in the season, so that shows I’ve obviously got something there – and I know once I get some more confidence in the car I’ll be able to go a lot quicker.”

That much is no idle boast, and as he looks ahead now to the second meeting on the calendar at the ultra-fast Thruxton circuit in Hampshire at the end of the month, Tom sits an excellent ninth in the championship standings, second-highest of the car racing rookies and optimistic of making further progress around a circuit of which he already has some knowledge and where he hopes to find more of a level playing field.

What’s more, he knows that in terms of car set-up, confidence and experience, there is so much more still to come – and if he can reduce the gap to the leaders from 1.9 seconds to only 1.3 seconds over the course of just a single day at Brands Hatch, what can he accomplish over an entire season..?

“I think to be ninth out of 20 drivers after the first round isn’t too bad at all,” he concluded, with characteristic modesty. “I’m pretty pleased with myself to be honest. There’s a test day at Thruxton before the weekend, and that will definitely be a big help; it’s a real balls-out track, so if I can get a day behind me there first that should be a big boost to my confidence. I also know roughly which way the track goes from my ARDS test there when I was awarded my car racing licence, so I think another top ten finish would be a really good result.

“I was really apprehensive going into the Brands weekend, but now I just want to be going to Thruxton tomorrow! I just want to get out there again because it was so good!”

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Monday 23rd March 2009

Racing star Ingram thrills fellow students with show of speed

The ‘wow’ factor well-and-truly hit Wye Valley School in Bourne End last week, as Tom Ingram – one of the school’s brightest young sporting hopes – thrilled his fellow students by taking his racing car along to give them a glimpse of what life in the fast lane is all about.

Tom may be just 15, but over the past eight years he has been busy carving himself out a hugely promising motorsport career. Already a multiple karting champion – including having triumphed in the same series that first set none other than Lewis Hamilton on the fast track to future Formula 1 glory – he is graduating in 2009 to car racing in the Ginetta Junior Championship, on the support bill for the popular British Touring Car Championship (BTCC), with meetings across the country that are frequently attended by as many as 40,000 fans.

That being the case, it was a treat indeed for his friends when he brought his Ginetta into the school, with many of them taking turns to sit inside the cockpit and getting quite a shock when he started it up and revved the engine into life...

“Everyone was asking me ‘Why is your car here? Did you drive it down here yourself?’” Tom grinned. “There will be thousands of people watching at the BTCC, and the added pressure of live TV too, so you need to make sure you say the right things in front of the cameras. That’s something I’ll have to get used to, I think, but this was a bit of a warm-up.

“Everyone wanted me to start the car up, and when I did I think they were a bit surprised at just how loud it was! It was good fun, and apparently they all got covered in fumes from the oil! Maybe some of them will watch my races on TV now. That would be pretty cool...”

Indeed it would, and as he bids to follow in the wheeltracks of his hero, Formula 1’s newest and youngest-ever title-winner, Tom equally knows that he cannot afford his schoolwork to slide. Having already undertaken successful work experience stints with F1 outfit Red Bull Racing and independent motorsport engineering concern Prodrive, the Monodraught-backed ace’s next goal is to secure himself a place at the prestigious Silverstone National College for Motorsport.

“It would be fantastic to get onto that,” he enthused. “Then I could really say motorsport is my life – at weekends I race cars and during the week I work with them. It’s very important to get your education behind you, because without that what do you have to fall back on?

“I’m following a Young Apprenticeship in Sports at school, which teaches you all about sports coaching and general body fitness. It’s good fun. It’s learning about the kinds of things you’ll never learn in normal lessons – and of course it’s always good that when other kids are stuck indoors studying geography, we’re out on the sports field playing football! Everyone in the school has always been really supportive of me and has wished me good luck in everything.”

That much was clear from the crowds of pupils and teachers clamouring around the car and Wye Valley’s newest – if somewhat reluctant – celebrity. For a school with such elite sporting pedigree and one that has in the past enjoyed success in the Commonwealth Games – courtesy of Anna Jemielity in swimming – and in the Olympics with rifle shooter Abbey Burton, as well as having sent one ex-pupil to Wellington College on a rugby scholarship, this is something rather different. Never before has it produced a future Lewis Hamilton.

“We are all as a tutor group incredibly proud of Tom,” remarked form tutor Anthea Hill, who has taught the reigning Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year since he started at the school and clearly enjoyed her opportunity to climb behind the wheel in his weekend ‘office’. “We’ve followed his racing very closely and have always been very supportive.

“I think the whole thing has gone by word-of-mouth to be honest, but now it’s a real ‘wow’ factor. When he won his first major title we were so proud, but he never told anybody. He is the most modest and unassuming lad you could wish to meet – there’s no arrogance about him at all.

“There’s a lot of focus on the Olympics in the school, but this is something totally different to what we are used to. I don’t think any child ever dreams this is going to happen – it’s always just names in newspapers. You never realise this is actually attainable.

“He has always been a grafter and applies himself very well. He’s a good, well-balanced lad, and I’m proud to have been a part of the early stage of his life. I think there might even have to be autograph sessions now!”

“It’s fantastic!” added acting head Jo Rockall. “Tom is such a positive role model for the rest of the school, in terms of his commitment to his sport and still making that sure he succeeds in his studies as well. He is one of our Young Apprenticeship students, which involves 50 days’ work experience across two years and results in four GCSE-equivalent qualifications as well as a number of coaching qualifications.

“The students that we select to go on the programme have to be good role models, have good leadership skills and be good team players. Tom has all three qualities, and we are very proud of him.

“What he’s doing is very different, and it’s really nice to move away from the more traditional sports like football and cricket. I think our students were thrilled to see the car and thought ‘Wow, I’d love to be doing that!’ I think some of the other kids will now talk to him about it and be genuinely interested, but he’s not going to lose his head over it. We really wish him all the best in his career in motor racing.”

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 Wednesday 11th March 2009

 Ingram seals Ginetta deal with podium in his sights

Having revealed back at the start of the year that he was hanging up his karting helmet following eight years of competition – yielding the prestigious BRDC Stars of Tomorrow crown along the way – Tom Ingram has now confirmed that he is to graduate to the hotly-fought Ginetta Junior Championship with the front-running Tockwith Motorsports outfit in 2009, as he prepares to launch his car racing career firmly off the starting grid.

During his time in karting, the young High Wycombe star was always regarded as one of the front-runners – and with good reason, with no fewer than 9 major titles to his name. Now he is hoping to put all of the experience and knowledge he has gleaned to good use as he moves into the closed-top sportscar series, which forms part of the support bill for the hugely popular British Touring Car Championship (BTCC), regularly attended by as many as 40,000 fans and broadcast live on ITV4. It is, he acknowledges, quite a step.

“It’s different to what I’m used to,” he mused, with just a touch of understatement. “In karting it’s one man and his dog standing in a muddy field watching some karts go round; here there are 30,000-40,000 people coming to watch.

“I generally cope well with pressure, though. In the final round of Stars at Buckmore Park in 2006, the whole championship rested on just one race and my main rival was starting behind me. It was the most important race of my life, and I managed to pull it off without any mistakes at all.

“Yes, there will be a lot of people watching, but they’re not going to change the result – that’s all down to me. It will be a bit nerve-wracking to begin with I’m sure, especially with the added pressure of live TV, but it’s all about blanking all of that out and just concentrating on the job in-hand – the racing.”

That, after all, is what Tom has always been best at, but he admitted he has had to try to banish some of his karting habits as he gets to grips with the ultra-light Ginetta – with rear-wheel drive and 110bhp, an entirely different beast to tame.

Having passed his ARDS (Association of Approved Racing Drivers’ Schools) test at Thruxton – the fastest and most fearsome circuit in the country – the 15-year-old has since been out on-track at Tockwith, Llandow and in his first major group test at Snetterton, with previous experience of Rockingham to boot. With the initial sessions all about just adjusting to his new ‘office’, he finally got the opportunity to experiment with different set-ups at Snetterton – and his lap times tumbled.

“Thruxton was a strange feeling,” he admitted. “It was different to what I had been expecting. Getting used to the gears isn’t anything major really – it’s just second nature – but being used to driving a kart, your instinct is to automatically correct any movement. The Mazda I was driving had quite a lot of body roll, so initially I was trying to control it. By the end, though, I was able to tell the difference between when it’s just leaning and when it’s leaning to go into a slide.

“The first time I drove the Ginetta was on Tockwith’s figure-of-eight circuit, just to get a feel for the way it behaves and what it does. People who have never driven a racing car at speed imagine it will have no grip and will throw you all over the place, but when you go out there you find you actually have loads of grip and can go into the corners quite hard. Now I’m more used to the car I’ve started chucking it about a bit more and sliding it, getting the back end out.

“Everything just clicked at Llandow, and since then we’ve been getting quicker and quicker and quicker. I think the spin I had there changed everything; I know where the limit of the car is now. I got to the point where it was no longer ‘what is the car going to do?’ Now I know much better what the car is going to do when and where to put it on the track. The key is to learn how the car is going to handle and being brave enough to know that it isn’t going to go anywhere and to put your confidence in it.

“I wasn’t challenging for fastest lap times at Snetterton, because it was my first time out in the car at race speed with competition. Before it was just me against the stopwatch, but since I’ve been testing I feel I’ve got quicker and become a better all-round driver for it.”

It is such a highly focussed work ethic and dedication to his craft that convinced Tockwith Motorsports owner Simon Moore to snap Tom up for the 2009 campaign, and the Yorkshireman is positive that with more time in the cockpit and the state-of-the-art facilities his team has to offer, the reigning Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year will really be able to turn heads.

“Watching Tom in karting, he was always one of the drivers who put the most effort in,” Moore remarked, “and like all ex-karters he is very capable. It’s all about how much commitment a driver and his family is willing to put into it when they come into the championship, and I certainly expect Tom to be one of the drivers who really pulls his finger out. The family have always put 100 per cent into their racing and everything associated with it, and if he gets the mileage he needs then Tom should be quite a quick learner I hope.

“He is very good at analysing things for his age and uses his brain well, which is excellent. He’s evidently trying his best and I think he will be very consistent, so a podium is certainly not out of the question. There will be good days and bad days, but as long as he can pick himself up again after the bad days I think he will do very well.”

Tom is similarly clearly enthusiastic about what he can achieve with Tockwith, and full of praise for his new team. With the opening meeting at Brands Hatch now less than a month away on April 4-5, the Monodraught-backed ace is palpably champing at the bit to get going, and if he is keeping his immediate expectations under check – well aware that he is still on a steep learning curve – he is certainly hoping to make swift progress as he climbs his way up the grid.

“We know everybody at Tockwith and have always had a good relationship with Simon,” he explained. “We raced with him and his son Nigel in Stars for several years and Simon has watched me over that time, so he knows what my driving style is; that’s a bonus because it means he doesn’t need to spend time getting to know me.

“I think having a lot of cars in the team is actually a big help. I’ve been talking to some of the more experienced drivers in the team and they’ve been helping me out a bit in terms of what gear I should be in when, and where I should be placing the car and so on. All the drivers share feedback amongst each other, which means you can bounce different ideas about.

“I’m not going into Brands Hatch with any expectations, because I’m only just starting out and I’m still getting used to everything. I would be over-the-moon if we managed to finish inside the top ten; to get a result like that in my first race with 22 cars on the grid would be really, really good.

“Ginettas are a new challenge, and I don’t want to put any pressure on myself to do well. Obviously I would like to do well, but it’s definitely going to be a learning year. I certainly don’t expect to be up at the front straightaway.

“I’m with a good team, and all the facilities they have and the group of people involved will help a great deal. Halfway through the season I think we might be able to get a bit closer to the front, and I will certainly put everything I have into it and be trying my best. I want to get at least a podium by the end of the year, and I think with a bit more testing and set-up and track time under my belt that’s definitely possible. I’m nervous about what lies ahead, but excited too.”

 

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Friday 7th November 2008

This article was taken from page 84 in the Daily Express on 7th November 2008

Tom to mirror Hamilton rise.

LEWIS HAMILTON has only just been crowned the youngest-ever F1 world champion, but already somebody even younger has appeared in his wing mirrors.

In 2006, Tom Ingram won the same Stars of Tomorrow Mini Max karting series that first catapulted Hamilton to fame and which is now sponsored by the McLaren driver. And at the tender age of 15, Ingram is looking to move into cars as early as April – two years before he is eligible to sit his driving test and a year earlier than Hamilton’s transition.

He is finalising a sponsorship package to enable him to take part in the 2009 Ginetta Junior Championship which runs alongside the British Touring Car Championship.

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Monday 6th October 2008

Budding F1 star Ingram gets top team offer

He may still be only a teenager, but Tom Ingram was afforded a rare view inside the highly secretive world of Formula 1 recently – and it has crystallised his desire to join his racing hero Lewis Hamilton on the grand prix grid one day.

The young High Wycombe ace has for the past three years been a regular front-runner in the BRDC Stars of Tomorrow Championship – the same series that first set McLaren-Mercedes’ Hamilton on-track to where he is now – and in 2006 claimed title glory in the hotly-fought Mini Max class, sponsored by the current F1 World Championship leader.

Indeed, Tom’s achievements over the past two seasons have seen him awarded a National/International Individual Sports Grant at the prestigious Sir Steven Redgrave Sports Bursary evening, held at Wycombe Wanderers’ home ground of Adams Park.

Amongst an audience of more than 150 people, the 15-year-old got the opportunity to meet and chat to such sporting luminaries as former Paralympic World Judo Champion Ian Rose and a number of Beijing Olympic medal-winning rowers.

“It was good,” he acknowledged. “We made a few new contacts and got a decent amount of money too which will help us. I’ve been to quite a few awards evenings now, but they still mean a lot to me. It really is a privilege, because not everybody gets invited to them.”

Privilege it may be, but Tom’s invitation to the ceremony was a deserved one, and one for which he has had to work – and race – incredibly hard. Indeed, it was one of just three notable experiences of late for the reigning Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year, as he also undertook a week’s work placement at Banbury-based Prodrive, one of the world’s leading private motorsport concerns and an outfit that has achieved glory in both the World Rally Championship with Subaru and the iconic Le Mans 24 Hours with legendary British marque Aston Martin.

“That was really good,” Tom enthused. “I really enjoyed it, and I was thrown straight in at the deep end – the first thing we did was fit a fuel tank! I’ve fitted a fuel tank in a kart before, but that’s a little bit easier…

“They gave me lots of advice, though, and were really patient with me too which was good. On the first day, every nut I tightened they would check was done up alright, but as the week went on they realised I was capable and trusted me to do a good job.

“I was really mucking in. The work we were doing was focussed around building one of their Group N rally cars, the new Subaru Impreza, which was pretty exciting. Then on the fourth day one of the cars came back from the Ulster Rally; it had caught fire on the event, so we were cleaning it out and replacing the parts that had burnt out.

“I learned so much. You never realise what actually goes on inside a race team behind closed doors.”

Indeed, so much did Tom impress Prodrive that they offered the Booker-based star an apprenticeship – what he acknowledges is a ‘fantastic opportunity’ – and he moved on to his second work experience placement, at F1 team Red Bull Racing, with the words ringing in his ear: “If Red Bull don’t offer you a job, we will!”

He spent his two weeks at the energy drinks-backed squad helping to build up one of the cars and preparing it to be race-ready, and he admitted the experience had been somewhat different to Prodrive.

“There I had been working on a normal road car stripped to do rallies,” Tom explained, “whereas an F1 car is made out of carbon fibre and designed for speed. The Red Bull factory is a lot bigger too, and there wasn’t an ounce of dirt anywhere – everything was pristine.

“As an F1 car sits so much lower down, you don’t tend to get underneath it so much either. They’re a lot cleaner too, and you don’t get covered in mud! Again, there’s so much hard work that goes on behind the scenes; every single angle is covered.”

The Monodraught-backed ace also met Red Bull F1 star Mark Webber, but without doubt the highlights of his time there, he revealed, were the two days he spent with the test team at Silverstone and the opportunity to jump in the car himself and gain a foresight of what one day may just lie in store for one of the UK’s most promising young motor racing talents.

“They said, Cosworth are coming tomorrow to make sure the car starts alright; do you want to jump in there and fire it up?” Tom related. “I never expected to be able to do anything like that; it was a bit surreal, but a huge bonus.

“They let me flick all the switches, pull the clutch out and go up and down the gearbox to check the hydraulics were functioning properly. When you let the clutch out in a car you normally get a bite from the clutch, but because it’s a hand clutch in an F1 car you don’t feel that. The only way you can tell if the car is running or not is by looking at the wheels. That was a bit of a surprise.

“I had ear plugs in and there was a big tube covering the exhaust to stop the fumes – and it was still really loud! We were revving at about 7,000rpm; the whole room was vibrating! They told me the engine will rev up to about 20,000rpm. You just can’t imagine what it must feel like flat-out… Not many people can say they have sat in an F1 car when it’s been running.”

Reflecting on his past few weeks and mulling over Prodrive’s offer, it is clear that Tom’s budding motorsport career is set to step up another gear. Deep down, though, his heart remains behind the wheel – and the Red Bull experience in particular has only made him even more determined to one day live out his dream of racing in F1.

“I really, really enjoyed it,” he summed up. “Both Prodrive and Red Bull said I was the best work experience person they had ever had, and one day I’d just love to be able to compete for one of them to help to pay them back for all the hard work they put in…”

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Friday, 25 July 2008

Motor Show ambassador Ingram confident plenty still to come.

High Wycombe karting ace Tom Ingram has once again been proving his fighting spirit in the Super One Champs.

The 14-year-old travelled to PF International in Lincolnshire for round four of six on the series’ calendar, and though he was flying from the word ‘go’ on only his second appearance on his new 2008 chassis – on which he had expertly triumphed first time out at Kimbolton only a week beforehand – as practice wore on he unfathomably drifted further and further away from the pace, to the stage where he was at one point more than a second shy of the leading runners.

“It started off well,” he acknowledged, “but we began to increasingly struggle for back-end grip from the chassis as the weekend progressed. As the sessions went on we were getting slower and slower and slower, and we just couldn’t work out what it was.

“After practice I was just thinking ‘as long as I can finish, that will be a result’; I was thinking I would be lucky to make it into the ‘A’ final to be honest. We were trying everything, but nothing seemed to work or make any kind of difference.”

Indeed, though his new mount may have been hooked up and ‘on rails’ at Kimbolton, Tom found himself initially floundering against his 40 Junior Max rivals at PF, as his #80 kart had difficulty in getting to grips with the constantly fluctuating grip levels of the track surface and proved to be both nervous through the corners and slow in getting the power down on the exit too.

With his small, family-run Ingram Racing outfit unable to figure out the root of the problem, it was a case of everything adding up, but the sum failing to equal the parts; indeed, so bad did the situation get that at one juncture they even considered undertaking a 260-mile return trip back home to try their luck with Tom’s old chassis instead.

His three heat races would yield 14th, sixth and 16th-placed finishes – from respectively 11th, third and plum last on the starting grid.

More significantly still, the Monodraught-backed star set a fastest lap time amongst the top five on each occasion, in the first instance better than that of all bar the top three finishers and in the third heat quicker even than the race-winner, meaning all hope was not yet lost.

“I had watched one of the heats for the seniors,” Tom recounted, “and had seen somebody go flat-out around the outside of the first hairpin and make up a load of places, so I thought I might as well try that in the first heat too. I made a good start and tried the same thing, and gained a lot of positions.

“Then I got to the second hairpin and there was a crash right in front of me. That cost me quite a few places, and I just had to work my way back again from there.

“In the last heat I thought I would do better by holding back at the start, as there had been a crash in every race up until then, so I held back in the first corner, held back in the first hairpin and held back in the second hairpin – and there was no crash!

“That meant that at the end of the first lap I was still last, and I had to make my way up the order from there. Given where I had started I just had to make the moves, but I was having to really brake late to be able to do so.”

Scraping into the ‘A’ final in a highly unaccustomed 21st position for the 2006 BRDC Stars of Tomorrow Champion – the same series that first set a certain Lewis Hamilton on the fast track to future Formula 1 glory – Tom had suggested pre-weekend that he would be satisfied with a top ten finish to maintain his title push, and he duly delivered on his word.

Some drastic alterations to the front end of his machine ahead of the race seemed to do the trick, as the reigning Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year bravely drove the wheels off his kart to pull a result out of the bag when it mattered most and take the chequered flag in ninth place – again with a fastest lap time a scant tenth of a second off the quickest outright and leaving him sitting tenth in the drivers’ standings on dropped scores with two rounds left to run.

What’s more, close rivals Joseph Reilly, Robert Gilmore, Joe McKeand, Robert Browning and Ed Brand finished respectively 12th, 13th, 16th, 18th and 26th – further highlighting how good a damage limitation job Tom had performed.

“In Super 1 there’s always going to be a few crashes,” he explained. “There was a crash into the first hairpin, so I made a few places up there, and by the time we got to the second hairpin I was already up to about tenth. We had changed a few things on the chassis to gain mid-corner grip, and the kart felt a lot better than it had done in the heats.

“I was actually up into sixth at one point, but then somebody went up the inside of me into the second hairpin. I should have just let them have the corner, but because I fought back they were able to run me wide and I ended up losing out.”

Nevertheless, ninth position added to the extremely promising run of results the teenager has enjoyed of late, with sixth and seventh places in his latest two Stars’ outings, second and twelfth – the latter from all the way down in 27th on the grid following a nightmarish weekend – in Super 1, and victories at both Kimbolton and in the Brazilian Cup at Whilton Mill last month.

As he heads to the prestigious Kartmasters event back at PF on 2-3 August – the blue riband date on the British karting calendar, and a race in which the top six finishers will each be entered into a shoot-out to win a funded drive in the British Touring Car Championship-supporting, Playstation Ginetta Junior Championship in 2009 – Tom’s tail is up, and having finished an unlucky 13th there on both of his previous entries in Mini Max, he is clearly keen to make it third time lucky.

“I’ve had some good results in recent weeks and it’s a one-off race, so I’ll aim to finish all the heats and then get to the final and see how competitive we are,” he reasoned. “I think we’ve learned a lot from this weekend, and can definitely improve on that when we get to Kartmasters. There’s still a lot we can find from the new kart; we’ve not really played around with the front of it yet, so there’s a lot more potential to come.”

In a further fillip, finally, Tom has been invited to be an ambassador for the new ‘Go Motorsport’ initiative at the London Motor Show this coming weekend (26-28 July), where – suited and booted in full racing gear – he will be helping to encourage people to get into the sport, be it as a driver, marshal…or simply spectator.

“It’s really good to hear that we’ll be doing the Motor Show,” he enthused, “and it’s an honour to be chosen to represent ‘Go Motorsport’ there.

“The show is supposed to be absolutely huge and there are a lot of big car names going to be there, as well as McLaren and Honda from Formula 1 and teams like VXR from the British Touring Car Championship, so it will be a good opportunity to get my name out a bit more. I might have to take a trip up to the McLaren stand too…”

Indeed, back in 1995 a budding ten-year-old karting star named Lewis Hamilton boldly approached McLaren boss Ron Dennis and told him that one day he would drive for his team. You can’t help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, 13 years later an equally promising young High Wycombe lad might be tempted to do the same.

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Friday, 18 July 2008

Equal opportunities see Ingram sweep the floor.

Young karting star Tom Ingram didn’t even expect to be racing last weekend – and yet not only did he compete at Kimbolton, he did so in peerless fashion.

The High Wycombe teenager – a regular front-runner in BRDC Stars of Tomorrow, the same series that first set none other than a certain Lewis Hamilton on the fast track to future Formula 1 glory – travelled to the Cambridgeshire circuit with the sole real aim of getting some mileage on his as yet untried 2008-spec chassis.

Though he admitted to struggling at first, once he had got the kart dialled in there was no stopping him, with Tom showing that on a level playing field with his Junior Max rivals for the first time all year – having thus far struggled to compete on out-and-out power – he is going to take quite some beating.

“We had the new chassis and wanted to test it before the national Super 1 meeting at PF International,” he explained, “but it wasn’t until a couple of days beforehand that we knew we were going to race at Kimbolton.

“We had been up there and challenging on the old chassis, but after you’ve had the same kart for a year-and-a-bit, obviously it’s good to have a new one, and being able to do good lap times and be competitive straightaway on it is always good.

It’s a lot better than the older one, definitely an improvement. We’ve got a lot more front end grip now, which helps coming out of the corners and that in turn helps the engine to pick up on the exit too. It was easier to make overtaking moves with the better pick-up.

“It took us the first two or three sessions to get onto the pace, but from then on we were on lap record times really. There were quite a few local specialists there, and they were quick from the word ‘go’ as you would expect.

“I also forgot to do the back hubs up before the first practice session. I came back in and said to my dad ‘when I go round the corners there’s no back end grip’. He then asked if I’d done the hubs up… That was a bit of a schoolboy error.”

Indeed it is easy to forget, though his impressively mature performances frequently belie it, that he is just that – still a schoolboy – and a thoroughly commanding drive earned the 14-year-old Monodraught-backed ace victory in his opening heat race by the margin of more than four seconds, a near-eternity in karting terms.

He was then forced to battle his way back up through the order in the following two races, after being punted off at the first corner on both occasions. Allied to his earlier win, the sixth and seventh places he salvaged earned Tom fourth spot on the grid for the all-important final – and, with a brace of fastest laps to his name and a new lap record to boot, in optimistic mood.

“I had got the lap record in the third heat, so I knew I was quick enough to do it,” he affirmed, “and I was able to put consistent times together as well, so I was feeling confident. I was up into third by the time we got to the first corner, and after I got second place as well I just worked with William Hillyard in the lead to try and get away.

“I wanted to get enough of a gap between us and the others so that when I made a move for the lead, if he did cut back on me I wouldn’t come under attack from behind too. I was just biding my time and waiting for him to make a mistake.

“He was looking over his shoulder a lot, and I knew where I was stronger than him – into the Bus-Stop – so I just tried to build the momentum up from the main straight on the penultimate lap and got into his tow.

“I could have made a move into the first corner, but it wasn’t worth the risk of him fighting back on the exit. Then in the Bus-Stop he just clipped a kerb, which allowed me enough room to get past, then I hung him out to get a bit of a gap and get away.”

It was a sublime showing, and one that blended intelligence and raw speed to absolute perfection, earning another trophy to add to Tom’s ever-burgeoning silverware collection. With plenty more untapped potential still in the chassis, and a lot more time to be squeezed out of it, the result was also a timely confidence boost ahead of his outing at PF this coming weekend, where he is aiming for a couple of solid top ten finishes as he continues to consistently rack up the points.

The reigning Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year was also in evidence, meanwhile, at the British Grand Prix the previous weekend, where he was acting as a karting ambassador for the prestigious new ‘Go Motorsport’ initiative and where he watched his racing hero Hamilton quite literally walk on water to prevail in torrential conditions. Whilst that performance undeniably caught Tom’s eye, he confessed to being more taken aback still by life inside the F1 paddock.

“The weekend was really good,” he enthused. “We managed to generate quite a bit of interest and gave out quite a few business cards. We were on the Stars stand chatting to people, and Jean [Playforth – series’ official] kept saying to people ‘do you want his autograph?’ and ‘come and have your photo taken with a famous karter’!

“Lewis did really well in the race, and the F1 paddock was very impressive, and a lot bigger than I had thought it was going to be. There seemed to be more people inside the paddock than out watching in the grandstands!”

Should his current run of from continue, you never know – one day Tom Ingram may just find himself in there on merit.

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Tuesday 1st July 2008

Ingram in seventh heavan after Llandow boost.

Rising young karting star Tom Ingram kept his challenge for honours firmly on-course in the latest round of the prestigious BRDC Stars of Tomorrow Championship, by taking his breakthrough Junior Max victory in the meeting en-route to a strong seventh spot overall.

The High Wycombe ace is a regular front-runner in the same series that first set none other than a certain Lewis Hamilton on the fast track to Formula 1 superstardom, having triumphed in the Mini Max class in 2006.

Now competing in the more powerful Junior Max category up against no fewer than 54 rivals, Tom was feeling comfortable and on the pace in practice in both wet and dry conditions, and looking good to add to his sixth-place finish from the previous outing at Whilton Mill – a result that, on the back of a troubled start to the season, had kick-started his title bid with a vengeance.

“I had only been to Llandow once before, with Stars last year,” he mused, “but it’s a drivers’ track, and one I enjoy. I was hoping for a good result; we needed points, so I thought a top ten would be good. If I can keep getting top ten finishes throughout the year we should be ok.

“The kart felt pretty good, and we had old tyres on for most of practice, so we were obviously on the back foot in terms of chasing times because of that.”

Beginning his first heat race from pole position, the 14-year-old led for six of the ten laps before being controversially overhauled by Michael Epps, who overtook him with the yellow flags waving – meaning no passing – and paid the price.

“I had a big lead at one point,” Tom related, “but then I looked over my shoulder a couple of times and saw Epps there. He was closing the gap, and I knew he was going to catch me so I was just trying to think when and where he might attack.

“I also didn’t want to start battling with him though, and risk either having an accident or letting the others catch us. Four laps from the end there was a yellow flag over at the back of the circuit. I put my hand up to acknowledge it, but Epps came past me, which he later got penalised for so I won.”

An early nudge in heat two – in which Tom had begun all the way down in 21st on the grid – did little to aid his cause, even if the reigning Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year once more displayed prodigious pace as he made his way back up through the order into 14th place at the chequered flag, lapping faster than all but four other drivers along the way.

A similar opening lap delay in heat three would restrict him to 12th spot at the close, having started 18th, as despite again lapping amongst the six fastest on-track and diving past his rivals into the final corner on innumerable occasions, a lack of power on the exit would severely compromise his chances of holding onto the position.

“I got a little tap from behind going into the first corner in the second heat, which sent me wide and cost me quite a few places,” he explained. “After that it was just a question of keeping my head down and picking off as many as I could.

“In the third heat I got a tap from behind at the start again, which bent my rear bumper a bit. I managed to pick them off again, but the field was so close and competitive that you could gain five kart lengths in one part of the track and then lose two lengths in the other, and that made overtaking really difficult.

“I would make the move into the corner, but it didn’t matter how well I then defended it, they could power straight back around the outside of me again. I kept having to try and overtake where they couldn’t get the cut-back again.”

Those results nevertheless left Tom sitting eleventh on the grid for the all-important final. A good start saw him make up two places within the opening couple of laps, while he would improve to seventh by lap five of 14.

Though he would go on to close the gap on the four karts disputing third place ahead of him – by dint of setting the second-fastest lap of the race, quicker than all bar the runaway race-winner – so evenly-matched were the leading contenders that the British #8 was never quite able to latch onto the back of their battle and challenge for the podium, coming up barely two seconds short at the chequered flag.

“We’d been near enough on the pace in both practice and the heats, so I thought for the final if we were up there we might stand a bit of a chance,” he acknowledged afterwards. “It was the same as at Whilton Mill, though, with the top ten drivers all within the same tenth.

“If it had been a 23-hour race, I think I would just about have caught them in the 23rd hour. We were catching them at about an inch per lap. There were literally thousandths of a second between us, and nobody was ever close enough to make a move.

“It would have had to have been a stupid lunge, and at this part of the season it’s all about using your head and scoring points. We came away with some good points and having moved up in the championship, so it was a good weekend all round.”

Indeed, Tom’s results from the meeting have seen him crack the top ten in the drivers’ standings, no mean feat given his luckless beginning to the campaign that had seen him invariably on the receiving end of his rivals’ errors. What’s more, he is now getting set to return to two of his favourite circuits – Genk in Belgium, scene of his maiden rostrum finish in Junior Max in 2007, and Shenington in Oxfordshire for the season finale.

“We went well at Genk last year,” he underlined, “with a podium on the Sunday, and at Shenington I came second in Super 1 earlier this year, so they’re two tracks I usually go well at. Hopefully we can have a repeat performance.”

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Monday 9th June 2008

Ingram triumphs in four-way thriller.

Rising karting star Tom Ingram may, with characteristic understatement, have classed his latest triumph as ‘not too bad’, but for those who witnessed it first-hand, it was that and a whole lot more.

By prevailing in a frantic tussle for glory in the Brazilian Cup at Whilton Mill – an annual charity race that this year raised £2,500 for street children in Brazil – the High Wycombe ace not only made it a second success in the prestigious event after previously collecting the trophy in 2006, he also cemented his status as one of the UK’s very finest young motorsport talents.

Tom entered the meeting not expecting a great deal after encountering all sorts of issues with his Junior Max kart in the previous BRDC Stars of Tomorrow round at Rowrah – the 14-year-old being a front-runner in the same series that first set his hero, a certain Lewis Hamilton, on the fast track to future Formula 1 glory – but with the fast, flowing nature of Whilton invariably to his liking and the merciless kerbs benefitting those who race with inch-perfect precision, he was rapidly on the leading pace.

“The competition was pretty tough,” he acknowledged of an elite field comprising a number of Stars and Super 1 regulars including such as Ollie Varney, Michael Epps and Dean Hale, “but I was confident because I knew I was quicker and could probably out-race them too.

“Whilton is an all-round good track; I love it. It’s a real drivers’ circuit, where if you make even the slightest mistake it will get punished.

“We were quickest on-and-off in practice, and when we weren’t fastest we were only a couple of tenths away. That’s not much, and especially when it comes to race situations you can find a tenth-and-a-half in the tow. The kart was a big improvement compared to what it had it had been like at Rowrah, though it was still lacking that extra bit of punch.”

Confusion over tyres in Sunday morning practice left the Monodraught-backed star fired-up for timed qualifying, and he promptly stuck the #80 kart on pole position to the tune of almost three tenths of a second, out-pointing Epps, Hale and Varney and giving little hint that he was suffering with a migraine and had been violently sick only minutes beforehand.

“I just strapped my helmet on and off I went,” he admitted matter-of-factly, letting the adrenaline and his unquestionable commitment do the rest. “I didn’t expect to be quite so far ahead. The kart felt really good – the best it had done for a while – and I was very pleased with that.”

Though he was beginning from the top spot for the first of two gruelling 28-lap races, Tom was not on the grippier side of the grid for the start, which allowed Epps to steal a march on him when the lights went out in the pre-final and leave the reigning Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year playing catch-up. And catch him up he soon did.

“I followed him for a lap before getting into his tow at the top of the hill and getting past,” Tom related. “He caught me up again and got back through two laps from the end, after which I followed him for a bit again to see where I was strong and where he was weak. I looked over my shoulder, and Hale was fairly close behind, but not close enough to challenge.

“On the last lap Epps was defending all the way up the hill, and though I got a sling-shot at him I couldn’t get past. As he was continually defending, I knew I would be carrying about an extra 1mph on the straight heading back towards the pits, and in the last corner he went wide and I dived through to win by two hundredths of a second – we were three-abreast and rubbing sidepods going over the line, but I had just managed to get that extra bit of speed coming out of the corner to take it.”

It was a magnificent move – and one that drew gasps of admiration from the crowd and plaudits from his rivals – with fastest lap to his name providing the icing on the cake and the result guaranteeing Tom pole position once more for the all-important grand final.

“This time I was thinking ‘I can’t let Epps get the jump on me off the start-line again’,” he recalled, “and sitting on the grid I was thinking about what to do. Michael got slightly ahead with the better line, but in the first corner I thought ‘it’s a one-off meeting, I’m going to try and go around the outside of him’. That gave me the inside line for turn two, and by holding him out wide I was able to open up a bit of a gap.

“After that I kept my head down and led for the next ten or 15 laps, pushing the kart as quickly as it would go, before looking over my shoulder and seeing that the others were starting to catch me. Michael got me back again at the top of the hill, then going through a right-hander the engine just cut out which allowed Dean to get by too.

“At that point I was thinking ‘I’ve got to keep my head together’, and I kept pushing and eventually caught them back up again. Going up the hill I managed to get past Michael on the inside and hung him out to dry a bit. That allowed Dean to get past him too, and I knew if I could do that it would leave them scrapping and it gave me the breathing space I needed.”

It was another sublime performance, but one that very nearly ended in tears as a backmarker panicked and strayed into his path on the very last lap, turning in on the race leader and sending the back of his kart flying up in the air – in much the same way as had happened in Tom’s previous outing at Whilton, when he had been denied victory almost within sight of the chequered flag when he was clattered into in similar fashion. Though history threatened to repeat itself four months on, this time at least there was a happier ending.

“I honestly thought that was going to be it,” he confessed. “My rear wheels were both up in the air on full lock – God knows how I held it.”

In a spectacular race in which any of the top four could have triumphed – and one described by Tom’s dad Bruce as ‘not a battle, but a war’ – the fact that the winner’s lap time was the slowest of the leading quartet was testament to the fact that whilst he may not had had the fastest kart beneath him on the day, he had certainly made the best use of it.

“My mechanic told me afterwards that I had driven absolutely amazingly,” he concluded as he now gets set to return to Whilton for the next round on the Stars’ schedule, admitting that he ‘needs’ points there following a frustrating start to the campaign. “I didn’t make a single mistake throughout the race, didn’t clip a single kerb or miss a single apex.

“I was really pleased. After Rowrah I hadn’t gone to Whilton expecting to win, so it was definitely a confidence boost, and it’s always good to win the weekend before a national meeting, especially when it’s at the same track.”

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29th May 2008.

Battered and bruised Ingram looking for lucky 13

Tom Ingram fought hard for little ultimate reward in his latest BRDC Stars of Tomorrow meeting, but the young High Wycombe ace nevertheless impressed with his grit and determination in the face of adversity as he gets set to return to a happy hunting ground for round four.

Having been unceremoniously punted out of the action from fifth on the grid at the start of the final in the opening Stars round of 2008 at PF International, Tom travelled up to the challenging Rowrah circuit in Cumbria – a track he acknowledges as one of his favourites – sitting tenth in the drivers’ table out of some 52 Junior Max competitors, and bidding to overcome the 20-point gap separating him from sixth place. From the word ‘go’, however, it became apparent that things would be far from that straightforward.

“We were throwing everything we had at the kart on the Friday – different wheels, tyres, jets, carbs, engines, exhausts – everything,” he explained of his practice woes. “I don’t think there was anything we didn’t change to be honest, but still nothing worked.

“It was near enough doing the same thing all weekend. The handling was fine, but on power the others were pulling 20 feet out on me on the straights. It was just one of those weekends where you could do everything but nothing would happen.”

It would prove to be exactly the same story on the Saturday, but what appeared to be a minor breakthrough on race day morning saw Tom make a superb start to his opening heat race – again from fifth on the grid – to briefly lead the opening lap. He later went on to settle in third spot, pulling away from the battling group behind him despite suffering with a broken clutch that left his engine stuttering coming out of the corners.

Just the 12th-quickest lap time – more than half a second off the outright pace, an eternity in karting terms – paid tribute to the 14-year-old’s supreme talent as he dragged far more performance out of his kart than it was willing to give. Given what had happened the last time he had begun a race from fifth on the grid, it was also something of a relief to see the chequered flag at all…

“In practice the kart felt a lot better,” stated the reigning Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year. “I felt happier and thought we might have cured the problem, but of course that turned out not to be the case.

“In the first heat the kart felt really good to begin with. I got up into the lead and thought I had a chance of winning it, then after five or six laps the kart went off. It was just giving me nothing of anything. I was pleased to finish third considering that.”

That, though, was pretty much where the good news would end, as a multi-kart pile-up in front of him in the second heat left Tom with nowhere to go as he ended up the innocent victim of an accident in which he had played no part, sandwiched uncomfortably between two other karts – one underneath him and one on top – and with considerable damage to both man and machine.

“Coming out of the first hairpin, about three or four karts had got tangled up ahead,” he recounted, “and everyone was trying to get around it. Somebody then made a lunge and forced me wide towards the accident. I swerved to avoid it, leaving a huge gap on the inside, which another driver then went for…”

With damage to his Xtreme Racing team chassis, steering wheel, steering column, wheel, stub axles, and two snapped track rods, there was much work to be done before heat three – and that was to say nothing of the cuts, grazes and bruises to the driver.

Concerned about not making it through to the all-important ‘A’ final, however, the fact that Tom not only bravely raced, but played it cool to finish 12th despite being in some pain, with a badly bent kart – making right-handers a particular struggle – and under strict instructions to bring it home in one piece, was highly commendable. That he subsequently missed out on getting through to the ‘A’ final by a sole point after all of his efforts was extremely rough justice indeed.

“I wasn’t going to make it obvious that I was in pain,” he admitted, “because then they wouldn’t have let me race in the third heat. I think it was more shock than anything, to be honest. I got out of the kart and was just shaking. In more than two years that’s the first DNF I’ve ever had in Stars.”

That alone is testament to the Monodraught-backed star’s remarkable consistency, and with a number of fellow front-runners also in the ‘B’ final and only four of the 25 drivers receiving promotion to the ‘A’ final, he knew that a good start from pole position would be absolutely crucial. And a good start is precisely what he got.

“There were a lot of good drivers in the ‘B’ final,” Tom acknowledged, “and starting from pole I knew I would just have to keep my head together. My mechanic Stuart told me to ‘drive the absolute nuts off it!’

“I just had to go for it flat-out and nail it off the line. That was really important – otherwise I would not have been able to make the break that I did. Just having that initial gap was enough to stop anyone behind from getting a tow and making a stupid lunge at me or anything. I pushed for about seven laps, then looked over my shoulder and saw that I had a huge lead so I slowed down a bit to save the kart and the tyres.”

Inch-perfect every lap, it was a brilliant performance, with only the sixth-fastest lap time again proving that whilst Tom may not have had the quickest machinery at his disposal, he more than made up for it with flawless skill and precision. Pulling away by as much as 3.4 seconds at one point, he completed the job to absolute perfection in what was a far from perfect kart – proving beyond doubt that he should never have been in the ‘B’ final in the first place.

That notwithstanding, to be in the ‘A’ final at all after all of his travails was something of a triumph in itself, and from 27th on the grid – with two rivals who should have been beginning behind him going unpunished for jump starts – Tom rose as high as 14th position before he once more became a sitting duck, fighting a rearguard action from thereon in en route to 17th at the chequered flag, with only one driver in the 28-kart field ending up with a slower lap time.

“The first five laps went well and it looked like we might have actually sorted the kart,” the British #8 said, “but then it started to go off again like it had done throughout all the heats. I just didn’t have the power; I might as well have been driving a Mini Max…

“Matt Parry [who set fastest lap in the Mini Max class, in which Tom triumphed in 2006] was five hundredths off my lap time in the final, when Junior Max should be a second quicker.”

That, indeed, says it all really, and now lying 13th in the points standings, he has put Rowrah firmly behind him and is keen to get back on-track again at Whilton Mill, where he was on course for victory in his latest outing earlier this year only to be sideswiped by a backmarker on the very last lap.

“I love it there,” he enthused. “It’s a really good track, a proper drivers’ circuit. I’ve usually had pretty good results there, and have won the Brazilian Cup at Whilton a couple of times.

“Whenever I start 13th I always do really well. I won the Renault Champion of Champions title from 13th on the grid – it seems to be my lucky number.”

___________________________________________________________________________

15th May 2008

Ingram ready to ‘go for it’ at Rowrah

After achieving a podium finish in his warm-up outing for the third round on the 2008 BRDC Stars of Tomorrow schedule at Rowrah, the same series that first set a certain Lewis Hamilton on the fast track to future Formula 1 glory, Tom Ingram is now after a similar result in the main event – and on current form, who would bet against him?

The young High Wycombe ace travelled to his ‘local’ circuit of Buckmore Park in Kent for a practice run ahead of his next Stars meeting. Though he had not raced in almost a month you would have been hard-pressed to tell, as he mastered the wet conditions on the Saturday to out-pace all 21 of his Junior Max rivals, in a field containing a number of Super 1 front-runners – James Doherty, Matt Shead, Billy Albone and Robert Browning amongst them – and one which Tom deemed to be ‘quite stiff competition’.

“We got there on the Saturday morning,” the 14-year-old recounted, “and some of the drivers had been practising on the Friday, but that wasn’t a major disadvantage as I know the track very well.

“The kart felt excellent. In the last session I was following James Doherty around to see what lines he was taking – I fell behind in traffic, but within just two laps had caught him back up again. That left me feeling really confident, and praying for it to rain on the Sunday, because I knew I had the pace to win in the wet. Unfortunately it was dry on race day, but being my home track I know I’m quick there in all conditions.”

A lack of bottom-end power from his engine in qualifying – particularly on the exit of the track’s two hairpins – left Tom starting his heat from fifth spot on the grid, but the inside line would work in his favour as he battled his way up to third place in the race, only to subsequently be demoted by Josh Webster.

“Though I could catch him on the brakes into the corners, I just didn’t have that extra punch to get past,” the reigning Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year explained. “Each time I made a move he could come straight back at me by getting the power down on the exit.

“I kept pushing him hard, but couldn’t get by no matter what I tried. We knew we could improve the kart quite a lot, though, so I was still confident.”

Being baulked into the first corner in the pre-final – forcing Tom to get on the brakes – saw him lining up on the second row of the grid for the all-important final. Despite budget restricting him to an ’07-spec chassis still, with the ’08 version thought to be worth as much as four tenths of a second a lap around Buckmore, the Monodraught-backed star made up for his lack of power with supreme racecraft to finish on the third step of the rostrum – and ensure he will arrive at Rowrah in positive frame of mind.

“I got a blinding start,” he stated, “and coming out of the second hairpin I was already up to second place, after going up the inside of Browning into the first hairpin and Ollie Morris-Jones into the next one. I knew I was quicker than Ollie, and that if I kept my head together I could pull away from him – which I did.

“I later checked over my shoulder and saw Joseph Reilly a little way behind having come from well down the grid, and he was clearly on a mission after a disastrous pre-final. He closed the gap that little bit too much and eventually managed to get past me.

“We only really went to Buckmore to learn some things ahead of the Super 1 round there in early June. I would have preferred to have finished higher up, but it’s always good to come away with a trophy.”

Another trophy to add to his burgeoning collection it indeed was, and as he heads up to Cumbria, Tom is clearly keen to avenge the acute disappointment of the opening Stars’ meeting of the campaign at PF International – when the Xtreme Racing star displayed lightning pace to qualify fifth out of a bumper field of 51 drivers, only to be unceremoniously turfed off the track in the final at the very first corner.

“I’m really looking forward to Rowrah,” he enthused. “I love the circuit – it’s an absolute quality track – and two years ago I was leading there in Mini Max before I got fired off. I know I’m quick enough there, and to be fair after PF any kind of result will be a bonus!

“I don’t feel under any more pressure because of what happened there – I’m quite far down in the championship table, but I know I can make those places up again because I’m faster than a lot of the drivers ahead of me. You don’t want to go into an event thinking you can’t win it, because if you do that then you won’t win.

“I just need to keep clocking up the points at the moment. I’m in this for points, because points mean prizes. I’m aiming for a top five – I would like to hope I could win, but it’s definitely not going to be easy. Saying that, if I’m lying second on the last lap just behind the leader I will certainly go for it…”

Fighting talk indeed.

___________________________________________________________________________

26th April 2008

Gripless Ingram fights hard for little reward.

Tom Ingram may have endured a nightmare start to his 2008 BRDC Stars of Tomorrow title challenge at PF International, but the young High Wycombe ace has vowed to return for round three at Rowrah ‘all guns blazing’ and gunning for glory.

The 14-year-old is this year bidding to add Stars’ Junior Max laurels to the Mini Max crown he clinched in 2006, but with 51 other drivers – twice as many as last year – all sharing the same aim of title glory, he is all-too aware that it will be no walk in the park. Indeed, the sheer number of competitors means a ‘B’ final has had to be introduced to separate the wheat from the chaff as it were, and at that stage of proceedings – with only four drivers making it through to the all-important ‘A’ final – desperation can set in, as Tom found out to his cost during the opening round of Super 1 at Clay Pigeon last month.

“There’s a lot more competition this year, with drivers having come in from Super 1,” he explained. “There’s a lot more pushing and shoving, and overall it’s going to be a lot tougher.

“I think there will be more pressure to get results, because if you end up in the ‘B’ final it means you’ve lost a lot of points and you may find it quite a challenge to climb back up in the championship again.”

The ‘B’ final would not trouble the reigning Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year over the course of the weekend at PF – a circuit he had only visited a handful of times previously, and one he characterised as being ‘featureless’ – but the driving standards of some of his rivals and his kart would, as power and grip woes dogged him throughout.

Tom was disadvantaged further in Saturday’s opening heat – which he would begin from the front row of the grid – when a regulations mix-up saw him having to carry an extra three kilos of fuel compared to his rivals, what he equated to being worth around two or three tenths of a second per lap.

That notwithstanding, he still got the jump at the start and led for six of the race’s ten laps before being hauled in by his pursuers. Though a late challenge to regain second place on the final tour proved briefly successful, he would take the chequered flag third, a scant 1.8 seconds adrift of the winner...

“I thought I could win it,” he reflected afterwards. “I was hoping I’d be able to get away and that the slower drivers would hold the faster ones up behind. I was pushing the kart as fast as I possibly could, but we just couldn’t keep that initial pace going and the others reeled me in. If it had been the final I would have fought harder to keep second on the final lap, but it wasn’t worth the risk in a heat race.

“In the second heat there were crashes on both the inside and outside in the first corner, and I thought I would just go for it. I kept on it around the outside through each of the first three corners; by the time we got to the chicane I had already made up ten places…”

That kind of performance earned Tom a fighting eighth place from all the way down in 24th on the grid, and he would add to it with a similarly gutsy drive to sixth from 14th in heat three, leaving him a superb fifth on the ‘A’ final grid – and with high hopes indeed.

“We were going really well,” the Xtreme Racing star went on, “getting quicker and quicker throughout the day. I was looking forward to the final, when I would at last be starting on the inside!

“If all went according to plan I thought I would be third by the first hairpin, after which I thought I was quick enough to stay with the leaders and maybe attack them towards the end. But it didn’t go according to plan…”

That would prove to be no understatement, as a chain reaction behind saw Tom get literally pushed across the start-line as another kart went under his rear bumper, lifting the #8 kart up onto its nose with no wheels touching the ground. With his nosecone damaged and scraping on the track, he in turn was driven into the kart ahead of him, the innocent victim of one of his competitors’ over-enthusiasm.

“When we finally got to the first corner I had no brakes, couldn’t turn and ended up going straight into the tyres,” he recounted. “I had to get back onto the track through all the wet grass.”

Not only did that affect his kart’s performance, it also left the Monodraught-backed ace nervous he would receive the black flag because the front was dragging along the ground. Too far back to make up many places, he went on to cross the finish line an understandably disgruntled 17th. A faster lap time than that set by the eventual race-winner just rubbed salt into the wounds by going to show what might have been.

“I thought it had to get better on the Sunday,” he acknowledged. “It was raining, and I’m usually quick in the wet, but that wasn’t to be either. We were down on power and lacking in grip. Where everyone else could point and squirt, I was pointing and wheel-spinning. Out of the corners they were just gone…”

With his kart proving to be a real handful and Tom struggling to slow it down in time for the corners, tenth and eleventh place finishes from the first two heats were the best he could do. A switch back-to-basics in terms of set-up for the third heat – allied to a drying track – produced a temporary improvement and allowed him to claim eighth position – though that still left him down in a disappointed 17th spot on the ‘A’ final starting grid.

“At the start I tried to go around the outside again,” he recalled, “but unfortunately somebody spun right in front of me. I had to come to a complete stop, and work my way back up again after that.

“I knew we weren’t going to be that quick, so I concentrated on preserving the tyres. I hardly turned the wheels going into the corners at all. I’ve been used to turning the kart with my body weight before, and when we came in at the end everybody else’s tyres were all chewed up whereas mine were still fine.

“I knew we were going to be down on the grid for the final, but not that far down. At least when you’re that far back there’s not so much pressure on you. I got a good start and was keeping up with the battle over fifth place and catching the leader. I thought ‘hang on, I could be in contention here’. Then the problems we had with the grip and the power kicked in again and the others increasingly pulled away.”

A 15th-place finish and distant 24th-fastest lap time – more than a second shy of the quickest – bore witness to Tom’s troubles, as he was left to walk away frustrated from a weekend that had seen him drive his heart out for ultimately next-to-no reward. He is refusing to let his head drop, however, ahead of the next round on the Stars’ calendar at Rowrah up in Cumbria towards the end of May.

Despite the problems he faced, he was only out of the top ten once in six heat races at PF – and that was 11th – ensuring he still left Lincolnshire sitting inside the top ten in the drivers’ standings. What’s more, Rowrah is a true drivers’ circuit, where the emphasis is on talent rather than equipment and where the current British Junior Max number eight has traditionally shone.

Evidence of his ability to bounce back was provided in Super 1, with a disastrous first outing – when appalling luck in the heats saw him consigned to the ‘B’ final, from where he was unceremoniously punted out at the first corner – followed by second place in round two at Shenington, his highest national finish at Junior Max level to-date. What’s more, fellow Xtreme ace Max Goff endured a horrendous opening meeting in Stars’ last year, and yet fought back to come within a whisker of clinching the JICA crown in the season finale. With Tom now aiming for consistency – the same approach that saw him sew up the 2006 Mini Max honours – everything is still possible.

“Before the second final of the weekend I was asked if I thought I was still in contention for the championship, and I said yes,” he asserted. “We can drop two finals and six heats, so it’s far from over yet. I’ve just got to have a good round in Rowrah, get some momentum going and then keep it consistent. I love Rowrah – it’s such a great drivers’ track.”

His mechanic Stuart Wright similarly insisted afterwards that ‘we’ll be back’, and only a fool would discount an outfit like Xtreme, but the last word should go to Tom.

“I’m not going to be out in the kart for ages,” he mused, “whereas the others are out pretty much every weekend. That is a disadvantage, but we’ll definitely be on it at Rowrah – all guns blazing.”

___________________________________________________________________________

10th April 2008.

Snow mistake as Ingram takes best national finish

Tom Ingram mastered every climatic condition Britain’s notoriously fickle weather could throw at him during the second round of the Super 1 karting championship at Shenington to seal his finest national result to-date in Junior Max – and launch himself into title contention.

The young High Wycombe ace entered the meeting – the second of six – on the back foot after a disastrous opening round at Clay Pigeon when everything that could conceivably have gone wrong did. He left again sitting pretty in second in the points table on dropped scores, and with a considerable spring in his step as he prepares to similarly do battle for honours in BRDC Stars of Tomorrow – a series in whose Mini Max class he triumphed in 2006.

“We had a few niggling little problems with the fuel pump,” the 14-year-old reflected, “but we managed to get it fixed in the end. We were quick all day Friday during practice when it was baking hot – T-shirt and shorts weather – and quick all day Saturday when it turned colder and started raining.

“On Sunday we woke up to heavy snow – three or four inches, maybe even more in some places. I was out in the morning scraping the awning roof because we all thought we would be packing up and going home.”

As unglamorous as that may have been, Tom’s efforts to shift the snow would prove worthwhile, as a similar action from the circuit stewards saw the track amazingly cleared. Not only that, but by the time the 47 karters headed out for the opening heat – in which the reigning Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year would be starting seventh – they did so shod with dry-weather tyres.

“I didn’t get the best of starts and dropped back one or two places,” he reflected, “but I quickly managed to get those positions back again. Then Ross Dougan went off across the grass and everyone went to the outside of him, so I dived to the inside.

“There was snow all across the track where he had brought it back on when he rejoined, and I went across it with slick tyres on! I was completely sideways, and couldn’t have missed him by more than a few centimetres. When I was that close to him I thought I was going to have some huge wipe-out…”

That he didn’t was evidence of Tom’s sublime kart control, and he would go on to cross the line a strong third. After that a ‘blinding’ start from tenth on the grid in heat two saw the Monodraught-backed star jump five of his rivals no sooner had the lights gone out, and he proceeded to chase down race leader Matthew Mason before reeling his quarry in as the race neared its conclusion.

“At the bottom corner there was water all across the circuit at the braking point,” he explained, “with a dry line around the outside of it. I was right on Matthew’s bumper with two laps to go. He went to go around the water and I went up the inside and got past.”

Tom’ maiden national success in Junior Max, after three times finishing second in heat races in Stars’ – the series which had first launched his hero, a certain Lewis Hamilton, on the fast track to future Formula 1 glory – was a superb result. Arguably an even more awe-inspiring charge was to follow in heat three, though, from all the way down in 19th spot on the starting grid into fifth place at the flag, securing him second position outright for the meeting.

“I got fired from behind into the first corner,” he recalled, “and knocked into somebody else who spun. There was a huge crash, but I managed to keep it on the track – even if I hurt my wrist in the process. Then seven or eight more went off which was a result, and after that I made at least two moves every lap.”

Back on a Tonykart mount – like that which he had raced for the majority of the 2007 season – following the collapse of Athenium Racing with whom he had begun the new campaign, Tom was also competing for the second time at national level with Xtreme Racing, with the experienced and respected Stuart Wright working alongside him on mechanic duties. He acknowledged both as having been a major boost.

“I can’t describe how the kart felt,” he enthused. “It was absolutely fantastic. Whe

Tom Ingram mastered every climatic condition Britain’s notoriously fickle weather could throw at him during the second round of the Super 1 karting championship at Shenington to seal his finest national result to-date in Junior Max – and launch himself into title contention.

The young High Wycombe ace entered the meeting – the second of six – on the back foot after a disastrous opening round at Clay Pigeon when everything that could conceivably have gone wrong did. He left again sitting pretty in second in the points table on dropped scores, and with a considerable spring in his step as he prepares to similarly do battle for honours in BRDC Stars of Tomorrow – a series in whose Mini Max class he triumphed in 2006.

“We had a few niggling little problems with the fuel pump,” the 14-year-old reflected, “but we managed to get it fixed in the end. We were quick all day Friday during practice when it was baking hot – T-shirt and shorts weather – and quick all day Saturday when it turned colder and started raining.

“On Sunday we woke up to heavy snow – three or four inches, maybe even more in some places. I was out in the morning scraping the awning roof because we all thought we would be packing up and going home.”

As unglamorous as that may have been, Tom’s efforts to shift the snow would prove worthwhile, as a similar action from the circuit stewards saw the track amazingly cleared. Not only that, but by the time the 47 karters headed out for the opening heat – in which the reigning Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year would be starting seventh – they did so shod with dry-weather tyres.

“I didn’t get the best of starts and dropped back one or two places,” he reflected, “but I quickly managed to get those positions back again. Then Ross Dougan went off across the grass and everyone went to the outside of him, so I dived to the inside.

“There was snow all across the track where he had brought it back on when he rejoined, and I went across it with slick tyres on! I was completely sideways, and couldn’t have missed him by more than a few centimetres. When I was that close to him I thought I was going to have some huge wipe-out…”

That he didn’t was evidence of Tom’s sublime kart control, and he would go on to cross the line a strong third. After that a ‘blinding’ start from tenth on the grid in heat two saw the Monodraught-backed star jump five of his rivals no sooner had the lights gone out, and he proceeded to chase down race leader Matthew Mason before reeling his quarry in as the race neared its conclusion.

“At the bottom corner there was water all across the circuit at the braking point,” he explained, “with a dry line around the outside of it. I was right on Matthew’s bumper with two laps to go. He went to go around the water and I went up the inside and got past.”

Tom’ maiden national success in Junior Max, after three times finishing second in heat races in Stars’ – the series which had first launched his hero, a certain Lewis Hamilton, on the fast track to future Formula 1 glory – was a superb result. Arguably an even more awe-inspiring charge was to follow in heat three, though, from all the way down in 19th spot on the starting grid into fifth place at the flag, securing him second position outright for the meeting.

“I got fired from behind into the first corner,” he recalled, “and knocked into somebody else who spun. There was a huge crash, but I managed to keep it on the track – even if I hurt my wrist in the process. Then seven or eight more went off which was a result, and after that I made at least two moves every lap.”

Back on a Tonykart mount – like that which he had raced for the majority of the 2007 season – following the collapse of Athenium Racing with whom he had begun the new campaign, Tom was also competing for the second time at national level with Xtreme Racing, with the experienced and respected Stuart Wright working alongside him on mechanic duties. He acknowledged both as having been a major boost.

“I can’t describe how the kart felt,” he enthused. “It was absolutely fantastic. Where before with the Tonykart you expected to turn in early then not get through the corner for the next fortnight, with this one I could just point the nose, turn the wheels and it went exactly where I wanted it to.

“Stuart was a real help. It’s not a tense atmosphere with him. He’s serious when he needs to be, but at other times you can really have a laugh. Whatever you ask him, he will tell you straight. It went really well.

“Due to finances, we don’t know how much more of Super 1 we are going to be doing. We could be doing the whole season, or that could have been our last round. Whatever happens I don’t feel under any pressure – though obviously I always want to do well – and this result was just brilliant!”

________________________________________________________________________

29th February 2008.

Ingram Left In The Lurch

 

Tom Ingram has been left without a drive for the 2008 karting season, as the Athenium Racing outfit for whom he had signed has folded due to severe financial problems.

 

The young High Wycombe ace - who two years ago triumphed in the Mini Max class of BRDC Stars of Tomorrow, the same series that set none other than Lewis Hamilton on the fast track to Formula 1 superstardom - said he was devastated by the news, which has not only torpedoed his chances of reclaiming Stars' honours in Junior Max, but also destroyed his hopes of competing in an international series for the first time, in the shape of the Euro Max Challenge.

 

"I'm heartbroken," reflected a saddened Ingram, who only a matter of weeks ago had been looking ahead to some 48 race meetings over the course of the year. "I was really looking forward to it all - I thought it was going to be perfect, because we didn't have the funds ourselves to do what we wanted to. This has ruined our season.

 

"I was going to be racing pretty much every weekend; now I just don't know. I was especially looking forward to the Euro Max Challenge. Since I started all I've ever wanted to do is race in Europe."

 

There had been uncertainty over the team's economic future for a number of weeks - leaving the 14-year-old to race, in the words of his father Bruce, 'effectively on three wheels'. Despite this, he nevertheless emerged victorious in four of the nine meetings he entered with Athenium - and finished as runner-up in a further three of them, a clear indication of both his eye-catching talent and also what might have been.

 

"You can't imagine how excited he was when we found out we were going to be doing Euro Max.," added Ingram Snr, who admitted that the family is owed a considerable amount of money in unpaid bills and race entries. "This has broken all his dreams, and in fact we will now struggle to complete the season. We will continue for the time being and hope something comes along for Stars and Super 1.

 

"We feel sorry for the other people who have been dragged down the garden path by Michael Kyriakides and Athenium Racing. A lot of people have been involved in this. We would like to thank those who have supported us all the way, especially Jamie Allen, Paul Turner and Darron Gibbs.

 

"We would also like to underline that the chassis' AMV supplied to the team have been fantastic; AMV have done nothing wrong in this at all. They have really tried to support us."

__________________________________________________________________________

27th February 2008.

Triumphant Ingram roars: Bring the season on!

Tom Ingram may have had no time for testing ahead of his latest meeting at his ‘home’ circuit of Buckmore Park, but that did not stop him from stamping his authority on proceedings and leaving his rivals trailing as the national racing season roars into view.

The young High Wycombe ace – a regular front-runner in BRDC Stars of Tomorrow – spent the practice day testing at PF International, scene of the opening Stars’ round in just over seven weeks’ time. He has competed at the Lincolnshire track twice before, but never in a Junior Max, and besides, on both previous occasions he has found himself punted out of contention. He is hoping to make it third time lucky in April…

“We managed to learn a few more things about the kart and engine there, as well as the track,” Tom affirmed afterwards. “People who do club meetings at PF are obviously going to be quick there in the national championships too, so we’ve just got to get as much testing under our belts as we can.”

The following day he travelled all the way back down the country again to Buckmore in Kent – where despite having spent the campaign racing on a minimal budget up against far better-funded competitors, he had clinched Stars’ Lewis Hamilton-sponsored Mini Max laurels in 2006.

“We were hoping we could just get it dialled-in straight away and be on the pace,” the 14-year-old admitted. “After three laps’ practice we qualified third. In the first heat I couldn’t really keep up with the two leaders. The chassis was really good and we were quick enough through the corners, but we were lacking in engine power going up the hill.

“We were losing out in top-end power, which is the biggest margin for gain around Buckmore. I could pull the gap back through the tight, twisty stuff, but in a straight line they were just leaving me.”

Though his prowess in the ‘tight, twisty stuff’ may have been a further indication of Tom’s prodigious talent, the fact that the main straight at Buckmore is a long one failed to do him any favours. After taking advantage of rival Matt Shead’s late-race error in the pre-final, the reigning Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year lined up second on the grid for the all-important final – not always a good omen

The outside line at Buckmore is not where you want to be,” Tom explained, “because you’re just going to get muscled out at the start. I had to make the best of the situation, and managed to get across, hold my line and hold onto second, which I kept for the first two or three laps.

“Then Craig Crowther got past me and just eked out a tiny gap. Again, I was catching him on the brakes into the corners, but I just couldn’t keep up in a straight line.”

Be that as it may, the Monodraught-backed star nevertheless proved that where there’s a will there is most definitely a way, as he picked off both drivers ahead of him within just a handful of laps, before going on to sail serenely and supremely on to take the chequered flag some 3.5 seconds to the good.

He was hoping to repeat that success in the annual pre-season shakedown at Clay Pigeon – attended by some 25 drivers – but despite displaying lightning pace on the opening practice day, this time Lady Luck was not on his side…

“Clay is an engine track and all the big teams were there,” Tom recounted, “so I didn’t think we were going to be on it straightaway, but on Friday we were down the road, absolutely on it wet or dry. I was feeling really confident and looking forward to it; lying in bed that night I was thinking ‘I’ve got a good chance here’.”

The last time Tom had raced at the Somerset circuit was two years earlier, with Clay set to host the curtain-raising Super 1 meeting next month. Continuing to lap faster than traditional favourites such as Ryan Singleton and defending ‘O’ Plate holder Joseph Reilly on the Saturday morning, the Athenium Racing ace’s tail was clearly up.

Then, however, the rear axle on his kart sheared right in the middle of the seat, and upon examination showed to be just a quarter of an inch from snapping right through. With no spares available, the weekend had suddenly been transformed from a glory mission into a lost cause.

 “It completely upset the kart,” Tom acknowledged. “It would no longer do what I wanted it to do – it was understeering and oversteering all over the place. In left-handers it was absolutely fantastic, but in right-handers it was useless; it just didn’t want to turn at all.

“We knew what was wrong with the kart, but we didn’t have the parts to fix it. We were just trying everything to see if it would make a difference, but nothing did.”

A best result of ninth spot in the four heat races left Tom lining up a lowly 16th on the grid for the final, and once again it was the same story. After a bright start that saw him gain a few positions, he rapidly became a sitting duck.

“I knew I couldn’t let it get to me,” he underlined. “I just had to keep pushing whatever the situation was. I got quite a good start and a couple of drivers ahead of me went off at the first corner, then I made up a few more places when some others went off too. Then they started to come past…”

“I think it did help,” he summarised. “We needed to see how the chassis would perform in a big event and we learned a few things. I was disappointed, but really I hadn’t got my hopes up because we knew what was going to happen.”

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8th February 2008

Taken from the BBC Three counties radio website

Motorsport

You are in: Beds Herts and Bucks > Sport > Motorsport > Thank heavens for Karters!

As the F1 teams unveil their cars for the new season, our motoring correspondent Bob Bull takes a look at the motorsport action closer to home.

Thank heavens for Karters!

Without them this column might look a little short, but thanks to Athenium Racing from Borehamwood we have some good news to report, and once again its High Wycombe’s Tom Ingram in the limelight.

Racing at Rye House the 14 year old youngster took his second outright victory for the team in another close fought battle with the best of the competition, beating local specialist, James Robinson.

A different approach to tyre pressures proved the winning factor for Ingram, who opted for a slightly lower pressure than Robinson and despite losing five seconds in the first three laps found that his tyres were in better shape as the race entered it’s final stages, and went on to win by half a second.

Mind you his after race quote of. ‘I was over the moon,’ is a little hackneyed, but we know what he means. Athenium also had two other class wins at the meeting and go from strength to strength.

Not satisfied with just winning races, Tom was also at the Autosport Show demonstrating his prowess to the 80,000 spectators on an indoor circuit. It was supposed to be a ‘demonstration’ but you can’t hold young karters back and it got rather frenetic, much to the delight of the crowd.

Next outing for Athenium is at Shenington, where they hope to repeat their success with another three victories.

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7th February 2008

Luckless Ingram denied glory.

Rising young karting star Tom Ingram may have been robbed in his latest outing, but that did nothing to take away from a superbly gritty display that saw him claim a moral victory, if not the winner’s trophy.

The High Wycombe ace – a regular front-runner in BRDC Stars of Tomorrow – got off to an impressive start at Whilton Mill, lapping right up at the sharp end of proceedings all the way through practice in a sizeable 28-driver field, populated by a number of local specialists.

“On Saturday we were quick all day,” he affirmed. “We were just trying out different engines really, and the kart felt good. I knew if I could just keep my head and not let anything get to me or let anyone play games, I had a good chance of winning.”

That much was confirmed by Tom’s performance in the three heat races, as he won two of them – from fourth and 12th places respectively – and finished tenth in the third from all the way down in 25th position on the grid.

“The first heat was really difficult,” the 14-year-old said, “but I never stopped pushing. Starting so far back, as soon as you see a chance you’ve got to go for it and just make the moves because you have no time to waste.

“Now I’ve been round Whilton a lot more I’ve found more overtaking places, and where other people wouldn’t necessarily make the moves I’m diving past.

You try them out in practice; if they work, they work, and if they don’t you know not to repeat them on race day. Other drivers leave themselves wide open because they don’t expect to be attacked there.”

The reigning Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year is certainly the master of pulling off manoeuvres at unconventional and undiscovered passing places, and if he admitted to finding the heats ‘challenging’, you would have been hard-pressed to tell. The results left him on pole position for the all-important final, and bullish about his chances.

“From the heats I was confident,” he asserted. “I was really fired up, and I said to Mike [Kyriakides – team owner and a former karter himself] ‘I’m going to win this’. In the build-up to the start I was just sitting in the kart concentrating on what I needed to do.

Signs that it was not going to be Tom’s day, though, reared their head no sooner had the race got underway, as confusion when the By the time the Monodraught-backed star had recovered his composure, he was down in fifth place and with a lot of work to do. In true never-say-die fashion, though, Tom had reclaimed second position by the end of the opening tour, and within two laps of the chequered flag he had whittled down the gap to Brand – which had been as much as six kart lengths – to next-to-nothing.lights went out saw fellow front row-sitter Edward Brand get the jump on the pole man, and take a number of other drivers with him.

With the leader repeatedly glancing over his shoulder and looking increasingly ragged as the Athenium Racing pilot relentlessly piled on the pressure, it suddenly looked as if Ingram had made the seemingly impossible possible as the race headed towards a nail-biting climax.

“I had a bit of red mist,” he recounted, “but in that kind of situation you just have to stay concentrated on your own race and not make any mistakes. The last two races I’ve won haven’t come easily, so I thought I had a chance; I knew I was capable of doing it.

“On the last lap I was close enough to get the tow. I took the corners perfectly; that race was going to be mine. I drafted him, hit the apex late and got a sling-shot up the hill…”

That, though, was where the fairytale shuddered to a very abrupt conclusion, as a backmarker moved out of Brand’s way before chopping straight back across the bows of the #80 kart behind it. Clattering into Tom, the impact stopped his momentum dead, undid all the hard work he had done in the blink of an eye and dashed his dreams of victory in one fell swoop.

Though it was ultimately little consolation, Tom at least had enough in-hand to retain second place and, swallowing his understandable disappointment afterwards, preferred to look forwards rather than back.

“We’ve still got 44 race weekends left over the year,” he mused, “so I’m sure we can win a few more…”

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14th January 2008

INGRAM GOES ALL OUT TO SEAL GLORY

Young High Wycombe karting ace Tom Ingram really had to fight for his second victory from four starts with his new team, but that was nothing compared to performing in front of a staggering 80,000 people the following weekend.

The BRDC Stars of Tomorrow front-runner had triumphed on his debut with all-new outfit Athenium Racing at Whilton Mill back at the end of November, but on his previous visit to Rye House – scene of his latest outing – he had been frustrated not to be able to race after the final was called off due to heavy rain. This time, he went there determined to finish the job off.

“I really wanted to win because we hadn’t had a win since Whilton,” the 14-year-old asserted, “and I felt really confident too because we had leaned a lot from Kimbolton and the other rounds.

“The kart was absolutely on it throughout practice – we were about a second quicker than anybody else in the wet and six tenths in the dry.”

Tom would convert that promise and pace into a victory and two runner-up spots in the meeting’s three heat races, leaving him to line up on the front row of the grid for the all-important final alongside pole-sitter – and local specialist – James Robinson.

“James won the last heat from pole but I had been quicker,” the Monodraught-backed star went on, “so I knew I could out-race him. By then it was dry with wet patches, particularly off-line. In the third heat when I had to come from further back, it was obviously harder because you have to go off-line to overtake. I just had to push and make the moves where it was driest, generally at the end of the straight.

“In the final I think James must have gone out with really high tyre pressures, because over the first three laps he left me for dead – I just couldn’t keep up with him. As the race wore on, though, I noticed I was hitting the apexes every time whilst he was hitting them one lap then missing by a mile next time around as he kept looking back to see where I was. I just had to push as hard as I could as his kart went off and mine came on. I was either going to win or go off.”

Fortunately it was the former that transpired, and after whittling down a five second lead – an eternity in karting terms – to nothing with a couple of laps left to run, Tom would go on to win by half a second, ensuring a triple celebration for Hertfordshire-based Athenium, which emerged victorious from three of the four classes it entered on the day.

“I was over the moon,” the Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year enthused. “The whole team was really pleased for me.

“I’m racing at Shenington next, and hopefully I can get another win. There will be a lot of competition, but I like the circuit and am really looking forward to it. I really hope it rains like it did during the Stars’ round there last year, when I was just down the road.”

As a warm-up to his next competitive outing, Tom was invited to take part in a special live action appearance in front of tens of thousands of motor racing fans at the Autosport International show at Birmingham’s NEC. It was, he acknowledged, a very special opportunity.

“It was nothing like what I’m used to,” he admitted. “I’m used to being out on-track with plenty of grip, but there was less than you get in indoor karting. We were just wheel-spinning, sliding and under steering all over the place!

“It was really exciting – you can’t not take a chance like that to perform in front of 80,000 people, though the first time I went out I was a little nervous I might muck it up… [BRDC Stars of Tomorrow series director] Carolynn Hoy had told us ‘it’s not a race, it’s a demonstration’, but we’re karters – we’re not going to demonstrate, we’re going to race!”

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29th December

Ingram battles back from inconceivable odds

Tom Ingram doesn’t race to finish second, but after searing to the runner-up spot from the very back of the grid in his latest outing at Buckmore Park, the young High Wycombe ace was certainly not going to complain.

The BRDC Stars of Tomorrow front-runner headed to his home circuit in determined mood, after his previous two meetings had gone far from according to plan. Having lined up second on the grid on old tyres at Rye House and feeling confident, Tom then had the disappointment of seeing the final called off due to heavy rain, whilst tyre woes would halt his charge at Kimbolton “As we had struggled a bit at Kimbolton,” the recently-signed Athenium Racing star explained, “we wanted to go back to a track we knew well so we could test everything out there too. I was quickest in the first two practice sessions, and for the rest of the opening day I was there or thereabouts. The kart was really good; we were just lacking a bit of mid-corner grip. The front end and rest of the kart felt absolutely brilliant.”

In a large and highly-competitive field, qualifying was always going to be a fraught affair, and despite continuing to lap right on the leading pace, Tom would begin the heat race from seventh on the grid.

“The top seven were covered by about a tenth of a second,” he said, “all in the blink of an eye. I just happened to be that tenth out…”

Things would deteriorate further when the 14-year-old was the subject of an assault from the rear into the opening corner, as one of his rivals flew over the top of his kart, badly damaging his radiator and – to add insult to injury – hitting Tom in the back of the head. What’s more, it would leave him starting all the way down in 23rd and last place for the pre-final.

“I really had to try and work my way through,” he acknowledged, “and get as many positions back as I could to hoist myself up as high as possible for the final.”

That he certainly did and with a good deal of aplomb, scything his way through the pack and – in true Ingram style – inventing passing places where there had not previously been considered to be any en route to seventh spot at the chequer. Indeed, Tom was right on the back of the leaders at the close – just one more lap and it is not inconceivable that he may even have won. Battle, suddenly, was well-and-truly rejoined.

“The kart felt really good,” he asserted, “and for the final we made a few changes to solve a few small niggling things I was struggling with, so we knew we were only going to make it better.”

From seventh on grid and under the watchful eye of expert mechanic Jamie Allen, the reigning Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year knew exactly what he had to do, and he wasted little time in getting down to business. Fighting his way past his fellow competitors – including the Buckmore Park Club Championship leader – he was closing consistently on the pole-sitter and eventual winner, Super 1 regular Robert Browning, by three tenths of a second a lap when the flag fell.the following weekend.

Browning admitted afterwards he had been amazed to see the #80 kart behind him in the race’s closing stages given where it had sat on the grid, and had he not been able to get the jump at the start whilst his pursuers – Ingram amongst them – all scrapped and held each other up in his wake, both drivers knew the result could have been rather different.

“I was really pleased,” Tom underlined afterwards, “but also a bit disappointed at the same time. It was fantastic working with Jamie though – he’s an absolutely brilliant mechanic! He knows exactly what changes to make and when. I’d like to thank him and indeed the whole team for coming down to support me.

“I managed to make two places up into the first corner, and after that I just pushed all the way. Two more laps and I might even have won it – all the little changes we had made had paid off, and the kart felt absolutely on it…”

So, evidently, was its driver.

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Taken from the BBC sports website.

4 December 2007

Breeding ground for Champions! by Bob Bull

The success of Lewis Hamilton this season has focused a lot of attention on the role of Karting as a nursery for potential Formula 1 aces and other forms of racing.

Amongst the crop of teenagers far too young to hold a driving licence, but racing weekend after weekend is 14 year old Tom Ingram from High Wycombe who has just signed to drive for the Athenium Racing Team in 2008.

Athenium was only formed this year and is already regarded as one of the top teams in Karting, thanks to it’s enthusiastic Managing Director, Michael Kyriakides, himself an successful ex-karter. Based in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire Athenium have been appointed agents for the Italian AMV Karts and will race the F01R model in the 125cc class.

Ingram, who is the Wycombe and Marlow ‘Sports Personality of the Year’ for 2007, had a very successful season both at home and abroad, and with the backing of Athenium can look forward to the new season with high hopes, but even before that Tom has shown his worth to the team!

Anxious to get the feel of his new mount, prior to an off-season of testing, Ingram took part in a meeting at Whilton Mill in order to gain experience of the untried, AMV chassis – and promptly won.

Practice went well and in the first heat, starting from 21st position, Tom made his way up to 6th at the flag having passed eight rivals on lap one. Heat 2 was run on a dry, but slippery track and mechanic Darron Gibbs advised the fitting of treaded tyres as opposed to the ‘slicks’ used by the majority of the field. The decision proved vital and from ninth on the grid the Wycombe youngster stormed to a brilliant victory.

 The win meant pole position for the final, but with two competitors jumping the start, un-noticed by the officials, Tom completed the first lap only fourth with a four second gap to the leader, Dominic Russell. Showing great determination and no little skill Ingram gradually whittled away at the gap before snatching the lead to take the laurels, the cheers of the crowd and the congratulations of his ecstatic team.

With backing from Monodraught Tom Ingram has already won nine championship titles, and who knows? Maybe Lewis Hamilton is looking over his shoulder, just as he has got Alonso looking back at him.

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29 November 2007.

Ingram repays new team’s faith with interest.

Tom Ingram has taken a major step forward in his fledgling motor racing career after being snapped up by the leading Athenium Racing outfit for next year – and he wasted little time in proving to his new bosses that they have made a very wise decision indeed.

The young High Wycombe ace has signed a deal to compete with the squad throughout the 2008 season, both at home and abroad, and a rigorous winter testing programme has been planned in anticipation of what he and the team hope will be a title-challenging campaign. Racing on the largely untried AMV chassis, Tom knows a lot of hard work lies ahead, but he is certainly encouraged by his experience of his new mount so far.

“We tested at PF International about three weeks ago,” he explained. “I felt the kart definitely had a lot of potential; we made a few set-up changes and it kept getting better and better throughout the day. After that I was really excited heading to Whilton Mill.”

Whilton Mill marked Tom’s maiden competitive outing with Athenium, and though he entered the meeting with the primary intention of developing the chassis and stressing a good result would be merely a bonus, lapping four tenths quicker than anyone else in the opening session soon gave him reason to re-assess his aims.

“After practice I was really confident,” the 14-year-old asserted. “I know I can be consistent, put in good times and always be there or thereabouts. In the first heat I started 21st and finished sixth; the kart felt amazing. You need to really make a lot of places up on the first lap at Whilton, and by the end of lap one I was already 13th, after which I just continued to push my way through.

“In heat two a load of people went out on slicks, but my mechanic Darron Gibbs kept saying ‘no, they’re doing the wrong thing mate. We’re right, they’re wrong – trust me’. The race got nearer and nearer and I was asking ‘are you sure?’ and when we got to the grid we were one of only four or five people out on wets.”

It may have been an audacious decision, but putting his faith in his experienced mechanic would pay dividends, as the tyre choice proved spot-on and within a handful of laps Tom was already into the lead from ninth on the grid on a very greasy track. It was an advantage the BRDC Stars of Tomorrow front-runner and 2006 Mini Max Champion would never relinquish, and one that left his confidence sky-high ahead of the last heat of the day, which he would start from the fourth row.

“Where I would usually make the moves I didn’t want to risk it,” Tom said, alluding to the drying racing line in heat three that meant any overtaking manoeuvres would involve venturing onto the wetter – and therefore slipperier – part of the track. “The leader kept defending over the closing laps, and I knew finishing second would be good enough for pole so I just stayed where I was rather than risk bending the chassis for the sake of a heat win.”

Thereby beginning the final from the top spot, Tom’s task was not made easy when the drivers on the outside of the front two rows jumped the start and went unpunished, leaving him back in fourth place and almost four seconds adrift of leader Dominic Russell at the end of the opening lap. In a superbly gritty display, however, the current Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year showed exactly why you should never count him out by keeping his head and producing consistently strong lap times to whittle down Russell’s advantage and seize the lead at the top of the hill.

Having not put a wheel out of place all weekend, he would go on to take the chequered flag almost half a second to the good after twelve laps of breathless pursuit, with a huge cheer from the crowd as he crossed the line testament to victory for one of the most popular and respected drivers in the paddock.

“I never felt it wouldn’t be possible to win,” Tom stressed, after being mobbed by his new team as soon as he stepped out of the kart. “If you do think that you’re never going to push as hard. I just kept my head down and kept pushing. The kart was awesome, and it was really good to win on my Athenium debut. I know Mike (Kyriakides – Athenium Racing managing director) and the rest of the team were all absolutely over the moon.

“This is a huge opportunity for me. The atmosphere inside the team is quite laidback, but at the same time really focussed – they work hard but know how to have a laugh along the way too. The chassis is already good, and I know we can get a lot more out of it yet with little tweaks here and there. There’s plenty of time.

“Once the team has evolved a bit more maybe we can get an engine person on-board as well. That would allow Darron and Jamie [Allen, a man who has in the past helped to engineer such as Formula Renault UK race-winner Adam Christodoulou] to simply concentrate on the chassis rather than having to worry about the engines too.

“It’s definitely an advantage being with the team. In the second heat, for example, Darron lowered the tyre pressures and bolted on wets, when most people mistakenly went for slicks. If we had been on our own that’s a mistake we would probably have made as well.”

Indeed, both Gibbs and Allen possess a wealth of experience within the sport, allowing Tom to quite literally hit the ground running every time he takes to the track. What’s more, Kyriakides finished fifth in the 1980 World Karting Championship 250cc gearbox class, with the number 80 on his kart – the same number his new young charge has used since the beginning of his career, and one that has taken the Monodraught-backed star to a staggering nine championship titles already.

With his arduous winter testing schedule – proving there really is no rest for the rapid – and a 2008 programme that is set to include an assault on the prestigious Euro Max Challenge in France, Belgium, Germany and Czechoslovakia as well as the British Stars and Super 1 series’ – things look rather different now for a driver who as little as three months ago didn’t even know where he would be competing next season, and whose family this time last year feared they would lose their house in order to keep his racing career alive.

“I’m really looking forward to the European races!” Tom enthused. “I love going to Genk [in Belgium], and I think the highlight of the year this year was my podium there in Stars. It’s good to visit tracks in different countries and race against different people; it really helps to raise your profile.”

“My aims are the same as they always are,” he added, without so much as a hint of hesitation. “To win, win and win.”

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12 November 2007.

Ingram shines in karts and impresses in cars.

Tom Ingram was handed a golden opportunity recently when he got behind the wheel of a racing car for the first time – and he proved its worth by starring on his karting return at a circuit he had never so much as seen before.

The High Wycombe ace joined several of his fellow karting competitors in trying out a T-car at Rockingham, and certainly seemed to enjoy the day.

“It was absolutely excellent,” he enthused, “really good fun, though I was tired by the end of it! I was worried about scraping the wall, but luckily I managed to miss it every time.

“I think I did alright, but the instructor told me if I had right-foot braked rather than using my left foot – which is what I'm used to in karting – I would have been better still, because I kept having to switch feet. He said my lines and timing getting on the power and the brakes were all good.

“Most of us were on the brakes, getting the back end out and then pushing it in again. It was very different to what I had expected; I thought I would just stamp on the brakes and they would work immediately because it's a racing car, but you had to keep braking, braking, braking and eventually you got to the corner. Where I felt like braking was about 100 yards later than where the instructor was telling me to brake, because that's what I'm used to in a kart.

“My dad had always told me cars were nothing like karts, and now I know what he means!”

Although returning to karts the following weekend, there was yet another new experience as the BRDC Stars of Tomorrow front-runner tried out a KF3 chassis for the first time at PF International, setting the kart up for regular driver Max Goff who was unable to make practice.

“KF3 was quick!” he grinned. “My mechanic Stuart told me it was a completely different driving style to Junior Max, and it did take a while to get used to. At the start I was going into the corners too hot, and the kart was just bouncing around; in Junior Max you go into the corner, turn then squirt the throttle, but in KF3 you have to roll through the corners. There's so much grip available; you don't get any understeer at all.”

Despite spending the day running engines in, having to cope with a carburettor going down in one of the sessions and giving away as much as a full second to the class regulars due to not bolting on new tyres, it wasn't long before Tom was right on the leading pace. Indeed, the current Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year ended the day just 0.65 seconds shy of the top spot – despite suffering somewhat from the far more physical nature of KF3 compared to his regular Junior Max mount.

“I was pretty much on it,” he confirmed. “It was excellent, and definitely worthwhile! I came back and was absolutely bruised as anything though – my sides, back, ribs, hips, knees, everything!”

Putting the pain to one side, the 14-yeat-old was out on-track again the very next day practising at Rye House, ahead of his appearance in the prestigious Race Against Cancer karting event at the Hertfordshire venue on 25 November (http://www.theraceagainstcancer.co.uk). Teaming up once more with Rob Hanscomb Motorsport, and using local driver Hector Hurst as a reference point early on, by session three Tom was already six tenths faster than anyone else.

“It's a very short, 36-second lap,” he remarked after discovering the Hertfordshire circuit for the first time, “and at most you can probably only get two karts alongside each other at any point. It's the slipperiest track I've ever been to as well.

“James Robinson is another local lad round there and races in every club meeting. During the three laps practice I went out behind him just to be able to gauge myself, and we were pretty much on the same pace as each other.”

After triumphing in the opening heat by a staggering five seconds, and claiming the runner-up spot in the following two, Tom was leading comfortably from pole position in the final when radiator issues caused him to drop back into the clutches of the chasing pack. With the start of the race being delayed – and the floodlights employed – not enough tape was applied to the radiator to cope with the significant drop in temperature, and consequently the engine was not burning the fuel as it should, making the #80 kart easy prey in the corners.

To finish second as he did – a scant 1.3 seconds adrift of winner Robinson and some way clear of the rest – was an impressive achievement indeed. What's more, the 2006 Stars Mini Max Champion set the fastest lap of the day, a mere two tenths of a second shy of the circuit record despite the track being rather colder – and therefore slower – than its optimum temperature, and invented a number of new overtaking spots, something of an Ingram speciality as he repeatedly surprises his rivals when they are least expecting it.

“I learned a new track and I enjoyed being with Rob Hanscomb's team again,” Tom remarked afterwards, having headed there not even expecting to race. “I was really quite pleased with the weekend.”

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31 October 2007.

Teamwork sees Ingram beat champ at his own game.

Having raced with his small, family-run outfit for his entire karting career, Tom Ingram was given the chance to run with a team for the first time in a club meeting at Whilton Mill last weekend – and he rewarded that opportunity with a blistering performance in both wet and dry.

Following a brief on-foot recce of the Northamptonshire circuit, the High Wycombe ace was immediately on the pace – despite being up against 27 rivals, many of whom were local specialists. Having struggled at the track during the mid-summer ‘O’ Plate outing, this time around – running with the crack Rob Hanscomb Motorsport squad – Tom was the man to beat, comfortably lapping two tenths of a second quicker than Super 1 champion and local favourite Luke Varley throughout practice.

“The funny thing was as I was going round my dad saw all the Protrain people timing me,” the BRDC Stars of Tomorrow Junior Max front-runner recounted. “They apparently said ‘don’t worry, Ingram’s running underweight’, then I came in and we were right on the weight limit. The kart was really on it and I was praying for it to stay dry after that.”

His prayers were not answered, however, as the heavens opened in time for Sunday’s racing action, and after two standout drives in his opening two heats a change to the set-up for heat three led to increased understeer and saw the 14-year-old heading in the wrong direction.

“The key at Whilton Mill is to make up as many positions as possible on the first lap when everyone is still bunched up,” he explained, “because there aren’t that many overtaking opportunities around the track and once the drivers at the front get away you’re really going to struggle to catch them up again. In order to get past you have to get the corner before absolutely spot-on.”

That, though, is exactly what Tom did, storming up through the order from respectively 19th and 15th places on the balloted grids in his first two heats to third at the chequered flag both times. Allied to fourth position in heat three, the results were enough to place him on the front row of the grid for the all-important final – alongside Varley.

“I definitely thought I had a good chance of victory and felt confident,” the current Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year asserted. “The kart was absolutely excellent in all conditions, and I was able to learn the wet weather lines off Michael Epps in the first heat as I had never been to Whilton in the wet before. I followed Michael for about two laps, but then I really got onto him and got past!

“I knew I was quick enough, but it was also Luke’s home track so while I obviously wanted to win, I didn’t necessarily expect to win.”

Those chances, however, quite literally took a knock no sooner had the starting lights gone out, as Tom was assaulted by Varley’s team-mate Tom Fawcett – instantly dashing his hopes of standing up on the top step of the rostrum.

“Fawcett went straight into the back of me and picked my two back wheels up off the ground so I had no brakes,” he rued. “It was annoying because Varley was not really getting away until then, but by the time we got untangled from each other he was gone.

“I was still really pleased to finish third though, and at the end of it my dad said it was the best weekend’s racing he’d had in ages. We all really enjoyed it.”

A large part of the reason for that was the benefit the 2006 Stars’ Mini Max Champion felt from running with a team for the first time, as Rob Hanscomb’s calm, cool and collected professionalism and technical expertise reaped dividends – and also served to underline just what an excellent job Tom has done so far with the limited budget of his family-run Tom Ingram Racing outfit.

“Being with Rob Hanscomb Motorsport helped a lot,” he stated. “Normally I will come in and dad will say ‘what do you want changing?’ whereas Rob just knew what to do straightaway because he’s got so much experience and know-how.

“Also if you have three drivers all in the same team one can go out with the front of the kart raised up, another with it set as standard and the third one with the front down, which basically means you can cover three sessions in one.”

Funds permitting, Tom is hoping to stay with Rob Hanscomb Motorsport in 2008, with his focus firmly on lifting Stars’ Junior Max crown. On the basis of his performance at Whilton Mill, who would be willing to bet against him doing just that?

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28 October 2007.

Move over Lewis – the next generation has arrived!

Tom Ingram is a young man in a considerable hurry. The High Wycombe teenager is one of the leading lights in the same karting series that first launched Lewis Hamilton on the fast track to future Formula 1 glory a decade ago, and given the breaks, he could just go on to emulate his hero’s success.

Last year Tom (www.tom-ingram.com) triumphed in the Hamilton-sponsored Mini Max class, displaying remarkable speed, aggression, flair and consistency in the face of a number of rivals with far greater financial means at their disposal. Indeed, such were the budgetary constraints on his small, family-run Tom Ingram Racing outfit, as 2007 dawned it was looking increasingly likely that – prestigious British title to his name or no – Tom would not be racing at all and, at the tender age of just 14, would be forced into prematurely hanging up his helmet.

You don’t get very far in this life, though, by simply giving up, and persistence is undoubtedly an Ingram character trait. Tireless self-promotion over the winter months – including regular supermarket ‘roadshows’ to promote his racing and hand delivering some 250 letters to local businesses – reaped the desired rewards, and come the opening round of the 2007 Stars’ campaign at Kimbolton back in April, the newly Monodraught-backed star was not only on the grid – he was also bang on the pace, finishing third out of no fewer than 28 drivers in a heat race in his first national outing of the year.

Once again proving his formidable potential, Ingram effortlessly took to the more powerful Junior Max category like the proverbial duck to water and embarrassed a good many older, more experienced and better-funded drivers en route to eighth spot in the final standings. A string of gutsy showings throughout the season would yield 16 top ten heat finishes, twelve of which were in the top five and six in the top three, seven out of eight top ten results in the finals – with a particular highlight of a rostrum finish on European soil at Genk – and a stunning average qualifying position of 6.5.

Indeed, having only turned 14 in August, Tom was also the youngest driver in the class, but he was not to be intimidated and his superb performances caught the eye of the Wycombe and Marlow Areas Sports Council, who bestowed upon him their coveted Sports Personality of the Year award, an accolade formerly received by none other than five-time Olympic gold medallist Sir Steve Redgrave CBE.

There would be a further honour just weeks later, when the Wye Valley School pupil was invited to take part in the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Roadshow at Stoke Mandeville Stadium, another timely boost as he bids to go all-out for honours in 2008.

“I want to win Junior Max next year,” he asserts, “and I certainly won’t give up. Just because you tell yourself you’re not likely to win the lottery, you don’t stop trying do you?”

Given all Tom has achieved against the odds in his fledgling career so far, it would take a brave man indeed to bet against him.

Slightly further up the ladder is Bedford youngster Jordon Lennox-Lamb, whose exploits in JICA/KF3 have made him one of the main talking points on the European karting scene in 2007. Following a starring performance in the European Finals qualifying round at Essay in France that saw him set the fastest lap of anyone in the opening race – in a field of some 63 drivers of the highest international calibre – the 15-year-old went on to shine again in the finals themselves, held at Sarno in Italy. Though engine problems would ultimately dash his hopes of victory, he had nevertheless made his mark by routinely outpacing team-mate and McLaren and Mercedes-Benz Young Driver Support Programme member Oliver Rowland.

Jordon’s potential would so impress the factory Top Kart équipe, in fact, that it wasted little time in swooping to sign him up on a two-year European programme, taking in KF2 in 2008 and KF1 – the highest level in karting worldwide – the following year.

“I enjoy racing abroad so much,” he enthuses. “It’s in a different class. The first time I drove in KF2 it just clicked straight away; I was lapping as fast as some drivers in KF1, and KF2 use less powerful engines. I’m very excited about it all!”

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23 October 2007.

Powerless Ingram denied shot at glory.

BRDC Stars of Tomorrow front-runner Tom Ingram was bang on the pace in his latest race meeting at his ‘local' circuit, but – much like his hero Lewis Hamilton in Brazil – saw his efforts compromised by an intermittent mechanical glitch.

 

The 14-year-old travelled to Buckmore Park in Kent with a point to prove following a desperately disappointing time there last time out, when persistently incurable chassis woes had dashed any hopes of a good result.

“That definitely made me more determined,” the High Wycombe ace admitted. “I was saying all week before the race that I wanted to prove it had been the kart rather than me, and the new Tonykart chassis we had was a lot better, a lot more responsive on the steering and I could point it where I wanted to.

“I had to turn in earlier with the other one, and that's not how I like to drive at all. It had loads of understeer and would snap around mid-corner and then just bog down. This time the chassis was excellent, but instead of that we were having on-and-off electrical issues…”

There was, indeed, very much a sense of ‘if it's not one thing it's the other', and though the Junior Max star was quickest of all in practice, the problems left him particularly disadvantaged on Buckmore's long, flat-out uphill start-finish straight.

 

“That was absolutely killing me,” Tom confirmed. “In qualifying the kart seemed to be going off all the time, and after about five laps my times really started dropping off. The others would get past me, and after just 15 seconds or so had pulled out seven kart lengths. I knew I could make the moves – I know Buckmore Park like the back of my hand – but I just couldn't keep up.”

The result was sixth spot on the grid for his opening heat, which the Wycombe and Marlow Sports Pesonality of the Year would convert into seventh place at the chequered flag as he continued to struggle for consistency – usually one of his trump cards over his rivals. A new engine failed to resolve the issue, but worse still was to follow in the pre-final.

“I came out of the pits and put my foot down,” Tom recounted. “The engine was stuttering a bit, but because it was a different one I just thought it might be cold and didn't really think anything of it. It was fine for the rest of the lap, but slowing down into formation ahead of the start it kept cutting out and then it just cut out completely.”

It transpired in the haste to change the engine over in time for the race, the vacuum pipe for the fuel pump had not been connected properly, causing the engine to cut out with a lot of throttle. Though Tom pulled off the track and performed a quick and accurate diagnosis of what was wrong, fixing the problem before rejoining the fray, he was subsequently black-flagged for having worked on his kart while the action was underway, leaving him right down at the back of the grid for the all-important final.

“I got a place into the first corner,” he said, “and then three or four karts came together in the hairpin which gained me a few more. After that I just picked them off one-by-one as the race went on.

“I was catching the battle for fourth, but then four or five laps from the end the kart went off again and I lost loads of time. Fortunately the driver behind me was about five seconds back, so I was able to hold onto sixth place.”

It was a mixed end to a weekend that had promised so much, but at the end of the day, at least Tom had the consolation of knowing when the kart had permitted him to be on the pace, he really was right on it.

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9 October 2007.

Budding F1 star sawps four wheels for two.

Young High Wycombe karting ace Tom Ingram has revved up for his latest race meeting with a tour of Britain’s leading private motorsport outfit Prodrive.

Indeed, prior to making the visit the 14-year-old – who competes in BRDC Stars of Tomorrow, the same series that produced Lewis Hamilton – swapped his 80mph Junior Max mount for transport of a rather more sedate nature, as he joined in the Shenington – Silverstone leg of Stars’ 2007 Big Bike Ride, designed to raise money for disabled karters.

“I don’t usually get time to go cycling,” Tom admitted. “I cycle to the gym and back, but that’s about it.

“It was different to how I had thought it would be. I didn’t think it would be as long or involve as many hills as it did. We got up one, thought it would be flat and then there was another one! I think there must have been five going up for every one that went down!”

It may have been an arduous test of physical fitness, but it was one Tom passed with flying colours, and it was made more than worthwhile by a trip to visit Prodrive’s Banbury headquarters, as well as experiencing the thrill of a number of high-speed passenger rides around the engineering concern’s Warwick proving ground in a variety of cars.

“That was great fun!” the Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year enthused with his trademark grin. “Going to Prodrive was awesome. The first time we went round the track in the Subaru Impreza we were completely thrown back into our seats. There were three of us in the back, and every time we went round a left-hand corner everyone was leaning onto me.

“The tour of the factory was interesting too – it was amazing to see all the work and detail that goes into everything they do. I enjoyed it all.”

Tom will no doubt be hoping to similarly enjoy the next racing outing of his own, at Buckmore Park on October 21st, while he will also shortly be featured in two high-profile national motorsport publications. His aim for Buckmore? Simple really.

“I want to win,” he fires back without so much as a hint of hesitation. Don’t doubt it.

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9 September 2007.

Karting: Ingram – “I could have won…”

Tom Ingram proved talent can prevail over both adversity and the elements with a superb wet weather performance in the final round of the BRDC Stars of Tomorrow karting championship – the series that launched the career of a certain Lewis Hamilton no less – at Three Sisters near Wigan.

The 14-year-old headed into the meeting unsure of his chances, given it is by-and-large a power circuit and power – or rather a distinct lack of it – has been his major bugbear all year. While many of his rivals throw hundreds and even thousands of pounds at their karts every weekend, Tom and his small family-run team have no such luxury so he knew he would be up against it somewhat.

“We knew from the beginning of the weekend we were going to struggle,” he candidly admitted, “because it’s such an engine circuit. We also lost a bit of time in Friday’s first practice session when the engine kept cutting out because I think it had some water in it.”

Despite never having driven on the track’s shorter layout before, it took Tom little time to get to grips with it, and he set the third-quickest time in Saturday morning’s damp practice. He knew, however, that may be something of a false dawn.

“I felt quite confident if it stayed wet,” the High Wycombe ace insisted, “but I was worried because there were dry patches forming on the track. Saturday was always going to get more difficult because the track was drying out; with the more rubber that went down the engines kicked in more.

“We couldn’t get anything to work. Other drivers could stick their nose up the inside of someone and push them wide, but if I got my nose in I would just slide straight on and take them off. That held me back because I couldn’t make the moves I wanted to.”

Indeed, just one top ten finish – a fifth place – from his three heats and ninth from tenth on the grid in the final were far from what Tom has become accustomed to of late, and corroborated his complaint that his mount was severely lacking in both front end grip and straight-line speed. Wholesale changes overnight, however, saw the kart transformed and allowed Tom to speed to a trio of top ten finishes in the heats on Sunday.

“I definitely felt a lot more confident in it and was able to make moves where I couldn’t before,” the Junior Max rookie asserted. “I knew I had to make all the time up on the brakes mid-corner and get early on the throttle again, and if I could stay with them a bit in a straight line I had a chance. But to do that I had to get the tight and twisty section right every time.

“I had some very good heats. In the third one I got lunged at the first corner, a couple of karts went wide and I got hooked onto someone’s bumper! That dropped me back down outside the top ten, but I managed to make my way back up again into third. I don’t think a lot of people expected me to come through that quickly or easily.”

It was a magnificent effort, and one that helped to earn the Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year a deserved fourth spot on the grid for the final, matching his highest starting position of the year from Llandow and Genk. It also maintained Tom’s flawless run of top ten qualifying performances in every round in 2007, and marked his fourth top six start in the last five outings.

“As we waited on the grid the rain was getting worse, the track wetter and the puddles deeper,” he recounted. “Throughout the race I was just concentrating on the driver in front of me and what I was doing. You literally couldn’t see anything, even the spray off your own front wheels. I was aquaplaning all the way down the straight!”

After running a strong third for the opening three laps, Tom was subsequently demoted by Matthew Mason before the race was stopped five laps early following a smash just behind him on the main straight.

“I was a bit disappointed,” he reflected afterwards. “I think if they hadn’t red-flagged the race I would have finished even higher up. Matthew and I were catching the two leaders, and I think I had the pace to win it.”

The figures bear that out, with Tom setting the second-quickest lap of the race and fastest of the top four. The overall statistics similarly make for impressive reading, with 16 top ten heat finishes throughout the campaign, twelve of which were in the top five and six in the top three, and seven out of eight top ten results in the finals, with a highlight of third place and a rostrum finish on European soil at Genk. He also ended the year with an impressive average qualifying position of 6.5, making him one of the very best qualifiers in the field, despite giving away as much as two years in both age and experience to many of his rivals.

Ultimately winding up eighth in the end-of-season standings – a scant three points adrift of seventh – it speaks volumes for how high are the targets he set himself in 2007 that he was slightly disappointed with the outcome. With the stated aim to get into a works team for a full-on championship challenge in 2008, Tom is unflinching in his goals.

“I want to win Junior Max next year,” he fires back, not even a hint of hesitation. Should he succeed, it would be two titles in three years.

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3 September 2007

Young star Ingram gets a taste of Olympic fever.

BRDC Stars of Tomorrow front-runner Tom Ingram has been honoured for his spectacular achievements on the race track by being invited along to the Olympic and Paralympic Roadshow at Stoke Mandeville Stadium.

The High Wycombe ace spent the day posing for pictures and chatting to fans, as well as a handful of sporting heroes including multiple Paralympic world record holder Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson – Britain's most successful Paralympian – wheelchair basketball ace Ade Adepitan and four-time British Mountain Bike Champion Jenny Copnall.

“It was part of a 14-trip road show touring around different sports centres in the UK,” Tom explained. “It offered local people the opportunity to go along and do things like archery, rock climbing, football and so forth.”

The Junior Max star received the invite after being selected as Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year back in May, and after meeting the Olympic and Paralympic legends he had some fun by swapping his kart for Copnall's bike, still kitted out in his crash helmet and race suit.

“I felt quite privileged to be asked to go,” Tom admitted, “especially as there were so many famous people there. It marked five years to the day of the start of the 2012 games, and I spent the day handing out promotional cards and talking to people. It was a really good experience.”

Taken from BRDC Stars of Tomorrow website 3/9/07

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20 August 2007.

Ingram seals top ten in annual showpiece.

 

On the back of his breakthrough podium in the competitive Junior Max class of BRDC Stars of Tomorrow, Tom Ingram battled against a disobedient clutch, missing wheel and blackened boot to secure a top ten finish in the prestigious ‘0' Plate meeting at Whilton Mill.

The High Wycombe ace was one of 38 drivers competing for Junior Max honours in the annual event. With the calibre of Super 1 series leader Luke Varley, Stars' rival Kalvin Quinn and European front-runner Jordon Lennox-Lamb all taking part it was never going to be an easy task, but Tom acquitted himself more than admirably.

“We struggled initially on the Thursday,” he said. “I had to get used to the new track and find the right lines, but on Thursday night I walked around the circuit with a few of my mates who are club members there, and that really helped. On Friday I was a lot quicker and we managed to dial the kart in a bit more.”

Free practice went well until one of the wheels quite literally fell off Tom's wagon, but the recently-turned 14-year-old nonetheless succeeded in qualifying an impressive eighth overall. He would convert that to sixth place in the opening heat, though again the race was not without its dramas.

“Afterwards we found out the clutch had exploded,” he recounted. “One of the plates had moved out, preventing the clutch from running freely. It was rubbing on the drum of the disc which was slowing me down up the hill.”

A wholesale change in time for his second heat certainly did the trick, allowing Tom to set the fastest lap and make a successful late pass for the lead. It would all end in tears, however, for in an overly-ambitious attempt to reclaim the advantage rival Ryan Singleton cut across the grass and over the top of the #80 kart, a move that relegated the Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year back to 12th place and one for which Singleton would subsequently find himself disqualified.

“That was disappointing,” Tom acknowledged, “but we couldn't do anything about it. Ryan drove over my foot and ripped the pedal off, bent the brake rod and all the front loops. There was quite a lot of damage, and, worst of all, my driving boot was black. I was gutted about that.”

Having completed just five laps in Sunday morning practice in order to preserve his tyres, Tom came home second in the last of his three heats, just seven tenths adrift of victory after making up for what he lacked in outright top speed by being the last of the late-brakers into the corners. That left him a somewhat disappointed tenth on the grid for the all-important final, though had he not been so unceremoniously bundled out of the lead the previous day it would have been fourth.

The final would prove to be a yo-yo experience in more ways than one, as Tom repeatedly exchanged places with the drivers around him en route to ninth place at the chequered flag, ahead of five of the six club regulars present despite struggling with a kart whose performance deteriorated the more the 20-lap encounter wore on.

“It was bouncing three or four inches off the ground,” he explained, “and I just couldn't keep up with the guys ahead. I was constantly losing speed and traction which allowed them to get away.”

Still, ninth place in such a blue riband event was nothing to be ashamed of, especially in such exalted company. It was also an encouraging warm-up ahead of the next date on Tom's 2007 racing calendar, the final two rounds of Stars' at Three Sisters near Wigan on September 1-2.

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07 August 2007.

Podium breakthrough for incredible Ingram.

Tom Ingram scaled new heights as the BRDC Stars of Tomorrow championship travelled to foreign shores last weekend, and after vowing to finish up on the rostrum proved every bit as good as his word.

The High Wycombe ace headed to Genk in Belgium for Stars' overseas outing, and the European trip spurred him on to his finest performance to-date.

“Along with Buckmore Park, Genk is my favourite track,” Tom enthused. “It's definitely a drivers' circuit; it was noticeable how some drivers with strong engines didn't do as well as they maybe thought they would.

“The kart felt really good all weekend and did exactly what I wanted it to. On the Thursday and Friday we were struggling a little bit, but we managed to improve the set-up which got us into the ballpark in time for the first race day.”

After setting the fastest time of any of the 26 drivers in morning practice – two tenths of a second up on championship pace-setter Kenneth Andrews – the 13-year-old then went on to finish second to Andrews in his opening heat of the weekend, leading for three of the eight laps and thereafter remaining glued to his rival's rear bumper all the way to the chequered flag.

“Kenny was always going to come past given the straightline speed advantage he had over me,” explained Tom, the youngest and least experienced driver in the Junior Max class. “Because he is fighting for the title and I can't really catch him there, I had said beforehand if he came past I wouldn't fight him.”

Second place nevertheless marked Tom's best result in a Stars' Junior Max race, and a handy confidence boost ahead of heat two where he would finish a strong fifth from twelfth on the grid, having given away absolutely nothing to race leader and double final winner Max Hawkins for five consecutive laps.

For the third and last heat of the day Tom had to start down in 26th due to the grid lottery, but a meteoric opening lap saw him up in a superb eleventh as the karts flashed across the line for the first time. He had fought his way up to seventh, battling for a spot in the top six, when a knock from behind at mid-distance forced him onto the grass and re-arranged his exhaust, consigning him to a 21st-place finish.

Grip woes in the final – where he began from sixth position having looked odds-on for the front row until his exhaust problem – led to an early but expensive error that left the Monodraught-backed star briefly down in eleventh place, but to his immense credit he did not allow it to distract him and was back up to seventh at the close. He was the fastest driver on the track on the last tour; just one more lap and he would undoubtedly have been fifth.

“Going around the corner, because we had a bit too much rear-end grip I understeered past the apex at the hairpin,” Tom admitted. “As I got back on the power again the back end kicked out and I dropped a rear wheel over the kerb. It was a small mistake but one that cost me.”

Changes to the set-up for Sunday improved the kart even further, enabling Tom to set the second-best time in morning practice, once again ahead of the main championship protagonists.

Matching Andrews for pace as he had done throughout Saturday, Tom finished twelfth from 23rd in the opening heat, but that failed to tell the true story as he was in fact lying 16th until he was tapped into a half-spin at the beginning of lap two and had to battle his way through from the back of the pack all over again. Setting consistent lap times every bit as quick as those of the race winner, he more than confirmed his reputation as one of the very best and most fearless overtakers in the business as he passed rivals in places it is not meant to be possible to do so.

The following two heats yielded another brace of runner-up spots – in the latter he made up a staggering seven positions courtesy of another searing opening lap and was never more than eight tenths of a second away from the lead – and earned him fourth on the grid for the final, continuing an impressive run of top six qualifying performances stretching back to Larkhall in June.

“I was really confident,” the current Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year said, “but equally being on the outside of the grid I knew I would have to concentrate hard and not let anyone intimidate me into the first corner. I just tried to muscle my way across to the inside.

“I tried to get past Kenny once, but it didn't quite work and I didn't want to risk pushing him off. I then waited a couple of laps until he wasn't expecting me to make a move again. I had backed off a bit so he wouldn't be defending into the corners, then just braked really late into the chicane and made it stick.”

The result was third place across the line – his first rostrum finish in Stars since lifting the Mini Max crown at the end of last year and just two seconds shy of victory – and an excellent haul of championship points ahead of the final two rounds at Wigan at the beginning of next month. With Tom lying seventh, just 40 points blanketing third through ninth and 330 left on offer, it promises to be a dramatic conclusion.

“It was really good to be back up there again,” he beamed. “I've just got to try and better that now. I've only been to Wigan once, but I don't like the track. It's a power circuit whereas I prefer drivers' circuits.

“If I can get a couple of top ten finishes over the weekend I will be pleased with that. I doubt I will get another podium there, but I certainly won't give up. Just because you tell yourself you're not likely to win the lottery, you don't stop trying do you?”

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19 July 2007.

Radio star Ingram closing in on podium.

Tom Ingram enjoyed his most competitive Junior Max outing to date in challenging conditions at Llandow last weekend, marking himself out as a genuine top six challenger despite his distinct lack of experience in the class.

 

The High Wycombe ace – BRDC Stars of Tomorrow Mini Max Champion in 2006 – may at just 13 be the youngest driver in Junior Max this year, but he is certainly not letting it hold him back, as his superb performance at the South Wales circuit bore witness to.

“We had a brand new chassis for the weekend,” Tom explained, “so we were just getting used to it and learning new things.

“We managed to do a few things set-up wise for the wet conditions on the Friday, and we tried to carry that over to race day. I wasn't actually all that confident though, because we were struggling quite a lot. We had a bit of catching up to do with the EVX chassis; it's quite different to the old EVS one we were using before.”

The grid position lottery placed Tom first, 13th and 26th respectively for the heats, which he converted to third, fifth and tenth place finishes with top six lap times in all three. Indeed, in the second and third heats he fairly scorched his way up through the order, showing little fear of the conditions and taking equally few prisoners along the way.

“Kenny (Andrews) and Daniel (Lloyd Jnr) both got past me, but I managed to stick on Daniel's tail for a bit and learn all the proper lines that way,” he stated, displaying once again the wise old head that sits on such young shoulders and modestly omitting the fact that both Andrews and Lloyd have infinitely more experience in the category than he does.

 

“The kart was really good in heat two – it was handling very well out of the corners – and it was absolutely flying in the third heat. I got past quite a lot of people into the last corner and first hairpin in particular.

“To be fair the weather looked worse than it was; there's an awful lot of grip around that track, especially coming out of the last corner, but where the tarmac changes soon after the start of the lap the kart was sliding around a lot.”

His three strong results left Tom fourth on the 26-kart grid for the all-important final – a season-best – and he went into it in confident spirits. Drying conditions, however, provided the drivers with a dilemma before the start, and a lack of appropriate rubber left the recently-crowned Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year scrabbling around for grip and fighting a rearguard action race-long.

“It was very difficult,” he acknowledged. “It would have taken a very brave man to go to slicks, and we weren't that brave. The problem was we didn't have a set of tyres that were suitable for the conditions and during the race the kart was really struggling and going away from me. There was nothing I could do about that, so you just have to get on with it.”

The state of his wet tyres at the end of the 14-lap race – with chunks having quite literally been torn out of them by the drying track – told the story of Tom's plight, and the fact he held onto ninth place at the chequered flag under the circumstances was almost akin to a victory in itself. Pole-sitter Lloyd, suffering with similar issues – was only one spot ahead in eighth.

Nevertheless, the points taken away from the weekend have strengthened Tom's position in the title chase, as he lies equal seventh halfway through his debut season surrounded by rivals of far greater experience and with considerably more financial means. It is by any measure a formidable achievement.

“I had always expected to be up there,” he underlined, “but this is only a learning year for us and at Llandow we learned quite a lot. I said back at the beginning of the year I would be really pleased to finish inside the top ten in the championship at the end of it, but now I want to push for the top five.”

Such has been the impression he has made in his maiden Junior Max campaign, indeed, Tom has been interviewed on BBC Radio 1 in a piece due to be broadcast on the station's Newsbeat programme at 12:45pm tomorrow (Friday, 20 July), with a longer version set to run during the 2pm news programme on the 1Xtra digital station. To listen, tune in to 97.9FM.

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10th July 2007.

Ingram gets a taste of Hamilton fever.

BRDC Stars of Tomorrow leading light Tom Ingram got a feeling for Lewis Hamilton fever at Silverstone last weekend, as he took to the stage at the British Grand Prix.

The Junior Max ace was invited to take his kart, helmet and a selection of trophies to Silverstone, and over the course of the weekend gave away more than 1,500 promotional picture cards, signed autographs and posed for photographs with admiring fans, one of whom even joked should Fernando Alonso turn her down, she would like to marry him.

“Loads of people came up to ask for photos with me,” Tom said. “I'm getting used to it now! They were asking me how I had got into it all, what kind of speed the kart does and so on.

“It was really good. We've had some more interest come through since which seems to be quite promising, and that's all from just being on the stand talking to people and giving out cards.

“The atmosphere was really good. We were at the end of Hangar Straight; watching the cars come down there was absolutely amazing. Everyone was on their feet cheering and clapping when Lewis came past for the first time during the race in the lead.”

Following an invitation to the prestigious Sir Steven Redgrave Sports Bursary Reception in Marlow, a further honour has seen Tom asked to give an inspirational speech at an evening of academic excellence at his school this week. He will then travel to Wales to take part in the latest Stars' round at Llandow near Cardiff on 15 July, a circuit he re-visited recently to get a grip on the significant changes that have been made to it since his previous outing there four years ago.

“The last time I'd been there was on the old track in Honda Cadets,” explained Tom, at 13 one of the youngest drivers in Junior Max. “The changes have made it even better; it's longer now and more challenging. Instead of coming downhill, turning right and going back up again, there's a left double apex corner that tightens up. There's a straight right kink followed by another, then it comes back onto the old track again.

“The two new corners take quite a bit of getting used to; you either get it right or you get it wrong – there's nothing in-between. You've really got to think where you're going to make your moves.”

Intelligence has always been a major asset to Tom's racecraft, however, as he once again proved by lining up third and first for the heats and taking two second places in a competitive field. In the final he then battled hard with Kenneth Andrews – a driver with far greater experience in Junior Max and currently leading the Stars' standings – before ultimately settling for a valiant runner-up spot just a second adrift. In their frantic tussle for supremacy, Ingram and Andrews smashed the lap record time after time and left the remainder of the field quite literally trailing in their wheeltracks.

“The heats went very well,” Tom said. “In the first one we got straight up into second place and latched onto the back of Kenny for a while, but in the end he just got away from me. In the second heat I got the jump on Kenny at the start and managed to pull out a bit of a gap, but he got back past me again by using his superior straightline speed. I was still quite pleased to finish second though.

“That put me second on the grid for the final. I didn't get too bad a start, but because I was on the outside line I dropped back to third. I regained second place at the next corner and closed onto the back of Kenny again, then on lap seven it started to rain, with us all out on slicks! There was very little grip and the kart was sliding all over the place. All-in-all it was a good weekend and we learned quite a lot.”

Second place was a fine result, and one Tom will no doubt be hoping to emulate this weekend, as he bids to consolidate an excellent eighth position in the championship in his rookie Junior Max campaign in preparation for a full-on title charge in 2008.

Taken from the BRDC Stars of Tomorrow website www.brdcstars.co.uk

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25th June 2007.

Superb Ingram continues to defy the odds.

BRDC Stars of Tomorrow front-runner Tom Ingram continued to belie his age and relative lack of experience in Junior Max during the latest round at Larkhall last weekend, with arguably his strongest showing in the class to date.

Despite fighting front-end grip problems throughout the meeting, the High Wycombe ace - sporting a bright new helmet design - was rarely more than a tenth of a second away from the ultimate pace, and this in only his debut season in Junior Max and up against a field in which the average age is considerably older than his 13 years.

Tom was among the fastest five drivers in each of his three heats; indeed, in two of them his best lap was actually quicker than that of the race winner, and in the other one he matched it. All this, too, in a kart he was far from 100 per cent happy with.

“We really couldn't get the kart to turn in properly during the first heat,” the recently-selected Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year explained. “We had a lot of understeer and I had to try a lot harder than usual to get it into the corners, which meant the others were leaving me behind in a straight line. Although I had started from pole, I was actually surprised to hang onto fifth.

“I began the second heat 14th and fought my way through to fifth again. The kart felt really good; we had managed to sort out the problems we encountered in the earlier heat. It was still understeering, but not as badly so we had a lot more top-end speed.”

The third heat would witness perhaps Tom's finest performance of the weekend, as he demonstrated his flawlessly intelligent racecraft to battle his way up through the field from a 27th starting spot to eleventh at the chequered flag, leaving him sixth on the grid for the all-important final.

All that hard work, however, was almost undone no sooner had the lights gone out in the showpiece race, as a nudge from pre-season favourite Daniel Lloyd Jnr sent the #80 kart off the circuit and onto the mud banks on the outside.

“Daniel and I tangled at the first corner,” Tom said, “and after that it always felt like my kart was pulling left in a straight line. Whether anything had been bent or not in the impact I don't know. That dropped me back a couple of places, but I just managed to keep it going and remain consistent. As the front pack were squabbling amongst themselves that took a lot of pace off them and I caught up again towards the end; there just weren't enough laps left.

“I was fairly pleased though. If somebody had told me beforehand I would finish seventh at the end of the weekend I think I would have taken that!”

After four of the series' nine rounds, Tom currently sits an impressive eighth in the championship standings, out of some 32 drivers. With Llandow next – a track he last raced on as a cadet several years ago, leading until he was unceremoniously punted off at the last corner – he has the perfect opportunity to further cement his burgeoning reputation.

“I'd like to finish in the top five at the end of my first year in Junior Max,” he asserted. “That would be brilliant. I'm just trying to do the same as I did last year – keep it consistent and see where that leaves us at the end of the season.”

In Mini Max in 2006, lest we forget, that very same approach yielded the title.

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17June 2007.

Sky Sports camera fitted to Tom's kart.

Tom has the Sky Sports onboard camera fitted to his kart during the recent BRDC Stars of Tomorrow round at Larkhall near Glasgow. The dramatic footage should be shown on Sky Sports around the 10th of July. We will post the full TV listings nearer the time.

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03 June 2007.

Young star Ingram set for live BBC radio chat!

 

Leading BRDC Stars of Tomorrow racer Tom Ingram is set to take to the airwaves next Tuesday, when he will be interviewed live on BBC radio about his karting career and recent successes.

The High Wycombe ace triumphed in Stars' Mini Max class last year – despite his small family-run outfit being up against a wealth of far better-funded opposition – and in 2007 has made the next step up the series ladder to Junior Max, where he is already turning heads by figuring regularly in the upper reaches of the order.

What's more, Tom's highly impressive achievements were recently recognised as he was presented with the prestigious Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year award, an accolade previously won by no less than multiple Olympic gold medallist Sir Stephen Redgrave.

The 13-year-old will take part in the live interview on BBC Three Counties Radio's Tuesday Sport Show, due to air from 6-10pm on 5 June. To listen to what he has to say, tune into either 95.5FM (Bedfordshire), 103.8FM (Hertfordshire) or 104.5FM (Buckinghamshire), depending on where you live.

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30 May 2007.

Talent triumphs over adversity for gutsy Ingram.

BRDC Stars of Tomorrow front-runner Tom Ingram has added yet more silverware to his burgeoning trophy cabinet, with a brace of second place finishes in his latest two competitive outings.

The High Wycombe ace travelled to Buckmore Park in Kent – his first time there on a Junior Max chassis – and bounced back in fine style from an engine problem that cost him as much as four tenths of a second per lap throughout the heats to seal the runner-up spot in the all-important final, behind only local specialist Don De Graaff, a driver more than two years older than Tom and soon set to move up to the senior class.

“Don won the heats by quite a large margin, whereas I hadn't really been that quick,” he recalled. “We made a few changes before the final which really seemed to help though, and I could keep with him for the entire race. I was really on his bumper, but there was no point risking a move and ending up with nothing. After the heats I hadn't really expected to finish second, so overall it was a really good weekend and we learnt a lot from it.”

The 13-year-old's next race date was at Bayford Meadows, also in Kent, for the opening meeting of the South Eastern Challenge. Although it was a one-off appearance in the series, the adverse weather conditions produced a more level playing field and allowed Tom to overcome the limitations of his kart, and two heat victories and another second place in the final left him coming away from the weekend leading the championship.

“It went really well,” he affirmed. “It was wet all day, and I was a tenth quicker than anybody else in the rain to put it on pole for the final.

“I got a good start, but a few laps in Jack Saffery passed me and just left me behind. I was really struggling for grip and wheel-spinning out of the corners, but I got my head down and pushed really hard. I nearly went off a couple of times! I managed to catch Jack back up again later in the race; just one more lap and I might have had him.”

There was no shame in finishing second to Saffery – another local expert and a driver far more experienced in Junior Max competition – but the dice had not exactly been weighted in Tom's favour right from the start, as he discovered immediately after the race.

“When I came in at the end we found the brake was locked on solid,” he explained. “I was really having to press on the brake pedal to slow the kart down. I was trying to balance things back to get some weight on the brakes so it would stop a bit better.”

That braking issue disadvantaged Tom to the tune of two to three tenths a lap – a lifetime in karting terms – and the fact he still managed to hold onto second place, let alone challenge for his lead back again, spoke volumes. With his small family-run team hoping to have cleared it up in time for his next outing in the fourth round of Stars at Larkhall on 17 June, there could just be no stopping him.

Taken from BRDC Stars of Tomorrow website www.brdcstars.com 30/5/07

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14th May 2007

Talented Ingram treads footsteps of sports legend.

One of Britain's brightest young karting aces has confirmed his status as a true superstar in the making – by clinching not only a prestigious award, but also a lucrative sponsorship deal.

BRDC Stars of Tomorrow Junior Max front-runner Tom Ingram has seen his name inscribed on the same coveted trophy that has previously been won by sporting legend and multiple Olympic gold medallist Sir Stephen Redgrave, by lifting the Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year award.

“An invite arrived about a month ago to say I had been nominated in the boys' 12-15-year-old category,” explained the High Wycombe ace. “There were quite a few people there – runners, swimmers, martial arts experts, tennis players and the like. It's a fairly big area, and there was a really wide variety.

“I won the 12-15-year-old section, but we didn't know anything about the Sports Personality of the Year award – it was a complete surprise! My mum, dad, nan and granddad were all there with me, and our mouths all fell open when my name was read out.

“I got up and everyone was clapping – it just felt really weird! I made a short speech on the stage afterwards, especially to thank my family who have put everything into my karting and helped me a lot.”

Indeed, the accolade was not only a surprise but also a welcome fillip for Tom, who had spent the previous three days feeling ill and unable to eat – and if that on its own was not enough, he had his SATS to contend with too. If he felt somewhat under the weather though, it did not show, as he gave a flawless if impromptu acceptance speech, something he has got used to of late after addressing his schoolmates during a recent Sporting Evening of Excellence.

“That went really well,” he enthused. “We took my kart and a couple of trophies along, and there were about 200 people there. Everyone said afterwards I hadn't made a single mistake – it was absolutely brilliant!”

It was not over yet, though, as thanks to a supermarket promotional day last month, the 13-year-old has attracted a big-name sponsor in the shape of international ventilation business Monodraught. This in particular came as a weight off Tom's mind, following a winter spent scrimping and saving and unsure of whether he would even be able to make the starting grid this year.

“Terry Payne, Monodraught's managing director, came up to us and told us we'd set everything up really well and that our stand looked very professional,” Tom explained. “It's a worldwide company and a major boost for us. It will allow us to complete the season and maybe do a few other things along the way too.”

Tom's latest race meeting, though, was somewhat curtailed by the intrusion of the elements, as round three of Stars' 2007 calendar at Shenington had to be abandoned due to torrential rain. Not before the driver of the bright red, no. 80 kart had been able to make an impression, however.

“I love the wet,” he underlined, “and the rain makes everyone more equal. Shenington is a power circuit, and apart from the last corner the rest is pretty much all dependent on your engine when it's dry.

“We were very quick on Saturday and in the first two heats; even though I got taken out at the opening corner in the second one, we were still fast. I would have been 13th on the grid for the third heat, and I knew I could come through from there. I never put a new set of tyres on all weekend either, so I know I could have gone much quicker still.”

Taken from BRDC Stars of Tomorrow website www.brdcstars.com 14/5/07

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25th April 2007.

Ingram lays Shenington jinx to rest

Published by Mary-Ann (the editor) April 24th, 2007 in News. 0 Comments

Tom Ingram has received a welcome lift ahead of the upcoming round of his BRDC Stars of Tomorrow karting campaign, with a fighting top five finish in his latest outing – at the circuit that is to host the series’ next meeting.

The 2006 Stars’ Mini Max Champion travelled to Shenington for a non-championship event at a track that has never particularly smiled upon him in previous years – and with the cream of the Junior Max crop also taking part, it was to be a stern test of his talent. It was one he passed with flying colours.

“I did a round of Super One at Shenington and got taken out,” Tom explained, “then I struggled there in Stars last year. It certainly hasn’t been too kind to us in the past.

“I went there to get some practice in, and I learned a lot from the weekend. I had never been there before in a Junior Max, but it was a real confidence boost. It was a really good grid, with people like Max Hawkins, Kenneth Andrews, Jack Goff and Robert Gilmore all there – some of the top names in Junior Max.”

The heat races that resulted in two fifth places and a tenth, earning Tom an impressive second row starting position for the all-important final in a field of some 38 drivers, including both of those who had triumphed in Stars’ opening round at Kimbolton.

“In the second heat I had to start down in 24th,” the 13-year-old explained. “On the last lap I went up the inside of somebody into the hairpin for seventh place but we collided and I fell back to tenth. In the third heat I started 13th but worked my way up to finish fifth, which I was really pleased with, and that left me fourth on the grid for the final.

“I struggled a bit at the beginning. The top four got away from me and pulled out a gap, but I got my head down and managed to catch them up. I just didn’t have the pace to get past fourth place at the end, even though I was lapping two tenths quicker than him, and he’s three years older than me and the driver who won last year’s Shenington Club Championship.

“We hadn’t expected to finish in the top five, but I put some good lap times in and was second-fastest in the final, behind only Andrews who has been racing in Junior Max for a while.”

A confidence boost it certainly was, and Tom now heads back to Shenington on May 13 with his tail up and in search of another strong finish to add to the promising Junior Max debut he made last month. In the meantime, he has a promotional appearance at Asda in High Wycombe to keep him busy – as well as a talk on his karting successes at a Sporting Excellence Evening at his school.

“The day at Asda should be really good,” he enthused. “It’s all about trying to raise awareness about both myself and the championship, and to try and get some money together for my racing.”

The Asda appearance will take place at the Holmers Farm Way superstore in High Wycombe, this Saturday (April 28), and in addition to both Tom and his kart, there will also be a selection of Stars’ DVDs and reviews and a number of his karting trophies, of which there are no shortage. Should his career continue on the same track, there will soon be a good many more.

Taken from www.karklink.com 24/4/07

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24th April 2007.

Tom features heavily in 4 Sky Sports programmes about the Stars of Tomorrow championship shown during this week, despite a camera being fitted to his kart the vibration proved too much and the footage wasn't shown. Tom his mum and his dad all appeared, when we saw it Tom could'nt stop laughing at his mum and her comments about making the tea "would you like a cuppa"

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18th April 2007.

Ingram off to encouraging start in Stars

Published by Mary-Ann (the editor) April 18th, 2007 in News. Tags: 2007 Stars of Tomorrow, Kimbolton, Tom Ingram.

Up-and-coming young karter Tom Ingram’s career took another step forward in the opening round of the 2007 BRDC Stars of Tomorrow Championship – the series that bred current Formula 1 sensation Lewis Hamilton.

The High Wycombe ace triumphed in the hotly-fought Mini Max category last year – despite his family-run outfit being up against a wealth of far better-funded opposition – and this season has stepped up to the even more fiercely-contested Junior Max class. A promising maiden outing at Kimbolton has left Tom lying eighth in the points standings, in a field of no fewer than 28 drivers.

“The first day went quite well,” he said. “Some of the heats were really good, especially the second one when we came through the pack.

 I was really pleased with that – I expected to come through a bit, but I really didn’t expect to come through that much. The kart was really going well.”

It was certainly an impressive performance, one that saw the 13-year-old scythe his way through from 27th on the grid up to tenth at the chequered flag. Allied to a fourth position in the third heat of the day – despite battling against tyre and carburettor problems – it was enough to put Tom eighth on the grid for his first Junior Max final, one that was unfortunately not to live up to expectations through no fault of his own.

“Going into the first corner I got a little nudge from behind,” he explained, “which put me out wide when a crash between two other karts happened. I had nowhere to go and couldn’t avoid it. I just clipped one of them which pushed my nosecone underneath the kart. That meant that going round right-handers the front was lower down and caused a lot of understeer so we struggled a bit with that.”

The end result was a disappointing 12th position, leaving Tom determined to atone for the disappointment on day two. A strong third place in the opening heat, coupled with a similarly inspired charge from the back of the grid into 13th place as he had produced the previous day, proved enough to guarantee another top ten starting spot in the final.

“On Sunday I wasn’t involved in as many crashes in the heats,” Tom said. “You’ve got to be consistent; if you finish first in one heat then last in the next it won’t put you as high up as if you keep collecting finishes around sixth and seventh place.

“The final was very tough. I could catch the karts ahead coming out of the corners, then they would pull away again in a straight line. I just had to try and keep it flowing through the corners.”

Ninth position was the end result – less than half a second shy of a place in the top six – and a promising start that has left his tail up as he heads towards the next round at Shenington on May 13.

“I think I did quite well overall,” he said. “The karts are obviously bigger and stronger than Mini Max, and most of the other drivers have been doing it a lot longer than me. There will be a lot more competition in Junior Max.”

“Last time I went to Shenington I didn’t do too well. Hopefully this year will go better.”

 Kartlink.com April 18th 2007

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7th April 2007.

At round 1 of this years Stars of Tomorrow championship Tom was asked if he would take part in a fly on the wall look at top level karting through the eyes of a competitor. We agreed but made sure that if we had a crisis the film crew would get out of our way as we do not get much time if we have to carry out any large repairs.

The Sky Sports film crew followed our every move for the whole day even fitting a camera to Tom's kart to record his racing experiences during each race.

We are told the programme will go out towards the end of April.

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25th March 2007.

Tom on pole after timed qualifying at the first round of the Bayford Meadows summer championship on an enging that came straight out of the box, the engine Tom used was part of his prize for winning the BRDC Stars of Tomorrow championship. With a gap of nearly 2 tenths Tom was under the current lap record set when the weight limit was 3kgs lighter.

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21st March 2007.

Russell Atkins from Crash.net interviews Tom about the winter break and his 2007 aspirations.

'Chilled' Ingram has title in his sights.

Reigning BRDC Stars of Tomorrow Mini Max Champion Tom Ingram made his 2007 bow at Kimbolton earlier this month, and sent out a warning shot to his rivals that behind his trademark cheeky grin he seriously means business.

The High Wycombe ace has stepped up to Junior Max for the forthcoming campaign, and his maiden outing at the Cambridgeshire track was also only his third on his new mount. Not that you would have known it from his prodigious pace around the circuit, however, as he set the fastest time in the fourth and final practice session, seeing off a whole host of far more established Junior Max regulars along the way.

“It took me about two sessions just to learn the track and familiarise myself with where I could make the moves, where I should be braking and positioning the kart on the track,” he told Crash.net. “Then we had to sort out the gearing too.

“I didn't expect to be quickest in the fourth session. I had the track in my mind and I just tried to follow Jack Goff's lines – he's one of the local boys around there. We had really good gearing and I managed to borrow a set of tyres for it – we had some really old sets and couldn't afford to get any more, but some other people kindly lent us some.”

The three heat races also provided a good deal of encouragement, as Tom twice converted back-of-the-grid starting positions into strong results, taking advantage of an opening lap skirmish in the second encounter and intelligently picking off the opposition to notch up eighth, seventh and third place finishes and earn himself an outstanding third place on the grid for the all-important final, ahead of drivers of the calibre of Daniel Lloyd Jnr and Kenneth Andrews no less.

“In the last heat I was right on the back of second place for about the last five laps,” he said, “but every time I got close going into the corners he would get away from me again down the straights.

“Third on the grid was fantastic for my first race of 2007, though, and only third time out in Junior Max. I was really pleased with that, but then going into the first corner I got a knock from behind…”

The resulting melee left Tom down in 11th place, but displaying typical grit and determination he fought his way back through the pack again up into sixth position at the chequered flag, a sure sign of what might have been.

“My mum and dad were really pleased,” he added, “but I wasn't too happy. I would have preferred to have been in the top five, but overall I think I did well.”

That was a view shared by many, and perhaps even more significantly still the day gave Tom the opportunity to get to grips with Kimbolton, venue for the first Stars' meeting of 2007 in just over two weeks' time. It is the kind of knowledge he hopes may hand him a crucial edge when the championship gets properly into gear.

“It's a really good track,” he enthused, “starting with a long straight heading into a tight hairpin. It's very technical and if you get just one corner wrong it mucks you up for the next bit too. There aren't that many overtaking places either, so if you see a gap you should just go for it.”

Indeed, being on the grid at all is something of a triumph over adversity for the popular 13-year-old, following a torrid winter that at times threatened to halt his racing career in its tracks due to a chronic lack of funding. That has now been partially resolved to allow him to compete in at least the first four rounds, and it is an opportunity Tom clearly intends to grab with both hands and make the most of.

“Some people said ‘yeah, we'll give you £300, £500, £1,000 or whatever but when it actually came to the crunch they didn't do anything,” he explained, “so I wasn't really that hopeful. Then we had two people come on-board which really helped us.

“I'm really looking forward to the year. Junior Max isn't that much of a step-up from Mini Max – it's about two seconds a lap faster but after a while it doesn't really feel that quick.

“I'm quite chilled anyway but there are a lot of really big names in Junior Max. There's Daniel Lloyd, and Gemma Stephenson can muscle her way about. They've both been doing it a lot longer than me, but I'm confident and I'm aiming to win it. It should be absolutely fantastic!

“All I need to do is be consistent, which is what I did in Mini Max, and I should hopefully be up there and challenging for the championship. I did it last year

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11th March 2007. Kimbolton.

Tom races for the first time in 2007 and shows his intensions for the coming season, with 3 good drives in the heats he secured 3rd on the grid for the final, after making the start all hell broke loose as the field arrived into the first corner, with all the pushing and shoving from the back the front runners ran wide and allowed half the pack to get through.

Coming back from 11th Tom pushed hard to come home in 6th. Afterwards he commented that he was disapointed with his result and felt that luck was not on his side.

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17th Febuary 2007.

We are please to announce that Tom has secured sponsorship for the first half of the 2007 season, 2 companies and a grant from our local sports council will be a huge help as Tom stuggles with finance.

Our first sponsor to sign up is OPSA a company producing steel skips of all sizes, based in Chesterfield.

The second company is Bywaters, a very successful waste collection and processing company based in East London.

Use the hyperlink on the sponsors section to find more information.

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28th January 2007. 2006 Buckmore Park awards dinner.

This year the awards dinner moved venues for the first time in a few years, having previously been held at Gillingham football club it made a welcome move to the Ramada Hotel in Maidstone, for us this was much easier to get to.

All the familiar friendly faces were in attendance and it was good to catch up with some of our racing friends we had not seen for a while. The guest of honour was David Brabham the much respected son of 3 times formula 1 world champion Sir Jack Brabham.

David has himself experienced the highs and lows of formula 1 when he drove for the Brabham f1 and the Simtek team back in the 90s. In 2007 David will be driving the Acura Courage in ALMS series.

When we entered the dinning room the huge table in the centre glistened with all the magnificent trophies as they waited to get presented to their new owners, as dinner was served the tension grew as the moment got closer.

With dinner out of the way it was time to get down to the fun bit the presentations, first up was the Buckmore Park Kart Club awards, where Tom picked up the trophy for 2nd in the championship for the 4th year in a row. The winner was James Doherty and although Tom often out qualified James he always had the firepower in the finals. Well done to James it was a brilliant season and we really enjoyed our battles.

During the evening we were reminded of the tragic consequences when it all goes wrong, when the trophy for 5th place in the “Man of Steel” hire kart championship was presented to the parents of Adam Goatley who tragically lost his life in a meeting back in November. Everyone in the room stood and applauded, it was quit a moment,

Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends.

At the end of the evening the special awards are presented and this is the evening highlight as no one know's who’s won what. One of the 1st special awards went to Tom as the BPKC member to finish highest in a British or National championship.

The next trophy was the Charlie Parker Memorial Shield for the most promising junior and this went to Tom’s arch rival James Doherty, the Team Spirit Award went to Dave Catt at The Kart Shop.

The final and most prestigious award was The Chairman’s Cup for outstanding achievement, and this went to none other than Tom Ingram, his mum was very emotional and Tom was very proud. 3 trophies in one night and what a night.

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14th January 2006. 2006 Autosport show.

Two weeks before the show, Stars championship director Carolynn Hoy had asked if she could borrow Tom’s kart for the Stars of Tomorrow stand. So we set about cleaning and rebuilding it and delivered it up to her on the Tuesday evening.

Tom was quite excited about having his kart at the show and couldn’t wait for Sunday when he was going up for the Stars of Tomorrow and Super 1 championship presentations.

Arriving at the show for the grand opening Tom bumped into his friend, World touring car champion Andy Priaulx who he had met at the Autosport awards evening last December.

As we got to the Stars of Tomorrow stand Tom saw a life sized cardboard cut out of himself along side his kart with a young boy having his picture taken, it was quite funny as Tom sneaked up behind the boy as he didn’t realise it was the real Tom.

The Stars stand was very impressive with the mobile race control truck and four championship winning karts, some Ginetta’s, Formula Fords, and in pride of place was Lewis Hamilton’s 2007 McLaren and all of these cars had cardboard cut outs of their drivers.

At 10am Tom was asked to go up on stage for a short interview where he talked about his lack of budget for 2007 along with his hopes and desires for the coming season should he find enough sponsorship.

Later in the day Tom was asked again to go up on stage for a questions and answers session with Andy Priaulx and a BBC racing commentator, Tom was very funny as he made fun of his dads motorcycle racing career and the fact that he wasn’t very good and he kept falling off and breaking bones, Andy Priaulx made a comment about following Tom’s career saying that there was a lot of similarities as he had also started racing with the number 80, and struggled for sponsorship to continue racing.

At 1.30 Tom went on stage again to receive his 2006 championship trophy along with a new engine, race suit, helmet, gloves, boots, but instead of taking a new kart chassis Tom opted to receive free entry to the 2007 Stars championship instead. (Budget permitting)

At 3.30 we went to the Super 1 presentation and this was a stark contrast to the razz-a-matazz of the Stars event.

It was quite amusing walking back to the car with a life sized cardboard cut out of Tom under his arm, it now scares the life out of us when we walk into our spare room and see him standing there in his race suit.

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17th December 2006. Tom's last race.

Story soon

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5th December 2006. Sports grant. 

As we search for sponsorship and funds to continue into 2007, we applied for a sports grant from our local council and some weeks later we were delighted to be informed that we had been successful.

We would like to thank Wycombe District Council for this kind gesture.

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3rd December 2006. Autosport awards.

Tom attended the Autosport awards evening at London’s Grosvenor House in Park Lane on Sunday as a guest of the British Racing Drivers Club where he was presented with his BRDC Kart Championship trophy.

This black tie event was attended by the worlds leading motorsport champions and F1 bosses where Tom spent the evening rubbing shoulders with the likes of Jenson Button, David Coulthard, Damon Hill, Johnny Herbert, Lewis Hamilton, Andy Priaulx, Eddie Jordon, Ron Dennis, Petter Solburg and many more of motorsports elite.

The evening was compared by ITV’s Steve Ryder, the whole event was filmed to be shown on ITV at a later date. As the time moved nearer to Tom’s presentation he became more and more nervous, then it was his turn to take centre stage in front of over 2,000 people, and as he walked up to receive his trophy all of his hero’s were applauding him.

Tom was presented with his trophy by Murray Walker and faced the worlds motorsport press for photo’s and comments, Tom spent the rest of the evening being congratulated by everyone,

The evening took an unexpected turn, as he left the venue with his trophy at around 2am he encountered the paparazzi for the first time with a sea of flashing lights, he also had to sign autographs for the motorsport fans waiting outside, he says “ it felt really weird”.

Tom will also be attending the Autosport show at the NEC on Sunday 14th January where his will receive his prize of a brand new kart, helmet, race suit, gloves, and boots.

Sadly Tom will not get to race or use this new equipment as he has not yet secured enough sponsorship to continue into 2007. If anyone would like to help Tom can be contacted through his website in the contact us page.

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