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‘Awesome’ triumph earns karting star Lloyd single-seater chance 

Jake Lloyd could barely contain his excitement after securing his maiden karting triumph in only the second round of the Lewis Hamilton and Bernie Ecclestone-backed Formula Kart Stars (FKS) Championship – a result that has earned the West Walian an opportunity to prove his mettle in a single-seater racing car at the end of the year. 

Having only begun competing last year with HT Racing at the lower Junior Max level, Jake has stepped things up a gear to the significantly faster and more powerful KF2 class this season, and the opening meeting on the 2009 FKS calendar at Kimbolton marked his debut with the Millennium Motorsport outfit. There would certainly have been worse ways to start... 

Despite having only visited the challenging Cambridgeshire circuit once before, the young Carmarthenshire star overcame a trying first round on the Saturday to genuinely take the fight to the KF2 class front-runners a day later, missing out on pole position by the tiniest of margins and then having to battle his way back past his rivals in the all-important grand final when a couple of early errors dropped him down as far as fifth place and looked to have signalled game over for the win. Jake clearly had other ideas. 

“I’ve only been karting for a year-and-a-half, so I’m just trying to move up the ranks,” the Newcastle Emlyn ace explained. “KF2 has been a huge step-up; it’s an unbelievable difference, particularly in terms of the grip and power, meaning it is a far more physical style of driving. You never stop learning, which is what you need to do to gain more experience and move forwards. 

“I enjoy Kimbolton, but it’s not as physically demanding as some other circuits are because while it’s quite bumpy it’s also very flat – there’s no real incline or curvature to it as such. It was a small field, but all the drivers were really good – there was only a thousandth of a second separating the top two, so the competition was awesome really. 

“Practice went really well – we were much quicker than the others – but that all went to pot on Saturday, which was a real disappointment because our expectations had been raised so much. I think that was down really to my inexperience in the wet; most of the other drivers have been racing in the class for at least a year, so they know how to make the wet tyres work, whereas I hadn’t really driven in those conditions before. It was very greasy out there, which made it hard to pick the right lines to take because the dry line was still wet! 

“Then in qualifying on the Sunday we missed pole by a thousandth! I got a good start in the race and got a good jump on Raymie Eastwood who was on pole, but then I made a few mistakes and dropped back down to fifth. I thought that was it – that my chance was gone – and that I was just going to stay fifth after that because I wasn’t really catching the drivers ahead, but then after a few laps they started battling a bit.  

“As they slowed each other down I was just getting quicker and quicker. I got onto the back of them, and when I went to pass Saturday’s winner Josh Fielding he didn’t really defend too much; when he saw me he just let me go and tried to follow me. There was still a lot of pressure on me even when I was back in the lead, because obviously I hadn’t ever won before, so I was just concentrating on keeping it on the road. It was hard to describe my feelings when I crossed the line – completely awesome...” 

It was indeed, and even better still was the news afterwards that in winning the race by just shy of two seconds, Jake had automatically qualified for a place in a Formula Palmer Audi (FPA) shoot-out at the end of the campaign, the overall prize of which will be a fully-funded seat in the 2009/10 FPA Winter Series or partly-funded drive in the 2010 summer championship. Either way, it will be quite some opportunity. 

“That meant a lot to me,” enthused the 16-year-old. “Winning alone was amazing in itself, but the FPA test made it even better – it’s an excellent prize, and it will be a huge chance for me! I really wasn’t expecting to do that well. It’s only my first year in KF2 and it was just my sixth meeting in the class, and I hadn’t really had the pace until then.  

“My aims had been really just to improve my pace and try to get closer to the top runners. I wasn’t expecting to win – I hadn’t even finished on the podium in KF2 beforehand – but I had the kart underneath me and the engine behind me to do it. The whole weekend was just awesome!”

Bum’s the word as Lloyd wins on Millennium debut

Like daffodils, annoying insects and spring lambs, football’s traditional Squeaky Bum Time seems to arrive earlier with every passing season. But rarely has Sir Alex Ferguson’s classic definition of the closing stages of the Premier League title race been used by a kart team manager to describe the opening weekend of a kart championship.

But after seeing his latest signing – Jake Lloyd – take a dramatic victory in yesterday’s (12 April 2009) second round of the Formula Kart Stars season, Millennium Motorsport’s Dean Panrucker couldn’t help himself.

“He made that hard work. My bum was squeaking!” he beamed after the young Welshman had beaten a small, but quality, field at Kimbolton.

Despite taking the chequered flag nearly two seconds ahead of the field, the 16-year old from Newcastle Emlyn had his work cut out for him in the opening stages of the race. As Dean explains, “Jake got a great start to take the lead from the outside, and initially it looked like he was going to manage to break away. I thought, ‘that’s it, we’re off!’ But he made a few mistakes which allowed the others to close.”

Dropping from first to fifth in just one lap, Millennium’s new signing was certainly putting his team through an emotional mill.

“At that point, I began to think that the race was over (in terms of a podium) but fair play to him, Jake kept his head and knuckled down to picking his way back up the order. Once he’d got back to the front, he managed to break the two and didn’t make any further errors and did a good job.”

Jake said, “I’m very pleased. I did make it hard work, but I haven’t got as much experience as the other guys. The package was amazing. The chassis and engine (Tony Kart and GFR TM) were both fantastic.”

After taking a brace of fourth places in the opening day, Jake was understandably delighted to have taken a win so early in his KF2 career.

“This is my first year in KF2 and I’ve had an awesome weekend. I’ve learned a lot and this (victory) has really got me fired up. Now I’ve proven I can do it it’s given my confidence a fair boost.”

Thanks to his win, Jake is now eligible to take part in the Formula Palmer Audi shoot-out at the end of the season, where the prize of a fully-funded drive in the FPA Autumn Trophy is available.