Whilton – Alfie Slater

The past weekend Alfie was at the Whilton Docks, for the first race of the Whilton Mill Kart Club Championship. We started the weekend with practice on the Saturday which proved difficult with the changing weather conditions every session, however preparing us for the worst on race day.
The first heat was wet and Alfie was on grid 17 for the start, he made progress on the first lap but unfortunately got hit from behind on the second lap causing him to be dead last with a big gap to make up. He made it to the back of the pack and managed to overtake three people in the last 2 laps, finishing 28th.

Alfie was starting on the front row for the second heat and with his team mate staring next to him on pole, they looked to work together and get ahead with clean start. With the conditions being damp this meant that intermediate tyres were used, which proved to work well for Alfie.
After the first lap he was in 5th position and the more experienced drivers were struggling to close the gap with just 2 laps to go one driver just managed to overtake him, then causing another driver to catch up which resulted in Alfie finishing 7th which was an incredible result considering the competition he was against.

With heats being mixed grids, the 3rd heat was Alfie’s turn to start near the back of the pack in 26th position. With the rain coming and going the conditions were constantly changing, this didn’t phased Alfie as he had experienced this during the previous days testing.
After finishing top ten in the 2nd heat Alfie’s confidence was sky high which showed in some of the overtaking that he displayed in the third heat. From starting 26th Alf drove a fantastic race coming through to finish 15th.

Now it was time for the final and with the goal of top 15 set from the start of the weekend, that was where Alfie started on the grid making any more positions now was a bonus. Alfie got an amazing start putting him in 8th position after the first lap, he had various battles for position with the top drivers of his class throughout the race, even keeping his cool when a sudden shower of rain came. Battling until the last lap Alfie got caught out by a back marker which made him lose a position two corners from the end of the race but even with that, Alfie crossed the line in an outstanding 10th position which is his best result to date in a very competitive grid. Unfortunately due to some of overtaking and changing conditions they deemed that Alfie had exceeded track limits, resulting in a penalty and in turn kicking him out of a top ten result.

However this didn’t reflect the amazing progress Alfie showed throughout the weekend. With confidence high from a top performance he now heads to PFI for the second round of the winter series looking for another top 15.