GETTING STARTED IN MOTORSPORT
Will Briant and dad Toby |
Hugo Torpey and dad Ian |
George Fenner and dad Terry |
Eloise Sutton and dad Andrew |
The Karting Journey
Hugo Torpey first sat in a kart at the age of 11 – a late starter compared to many – but just six months on, he is now racing in the Fulbeck Kart Club Championship in the Rotax Mini Max Class. The journey has been a rapid learning curve, both on and off track, for the young racer and his father Ian.
“ We have both always been interested in F1 and motorsport but to be honest, I never really thought I could afford to get Hugo into karting,” says Ian.“ Like a lot of children, he had a go at TeamSport, and he did very well, so I put him through their programme, and he went from‘ beginner’ to‘ advanced’ in about six weeks.”
Inspired by his journey through the indoor karting levels, Hugo wanted more, so Ian started searching the internet to find out how to take the next step. The Motorsport UK website provided a good introduction, but when faced with an overwhelming range of options they went to the KartMania show at Silverstone to find out more.
“ I do not have a motorsport background and have no connection with anyone that does, so I had no knowledge at all. I did not even know he needed a licence,” Ian explains.“ At the show, Rotax had a round table with Steve Chapman, where he took ten of us who were interested to know more, gave us a couple of A4 sheets of paper and talked us through it.”
Revolution- July 2025
It was a similar learning experience for Eloise Sutton, a 13-year-old who also started karting older than most, again with no motorsport family background. She also went to her local National Karting Association( NKA) approved track, in Nottingham, was bitten by the bug, and when her dad, Andrew, found former F1 engineer Rob Smedley’ s electric series, GKL – now renamed F. A. T. Karting League, she decided to give it a go.
Her first run at Fulbeck showed that she had the talent to back up her enjoyment and Andrew recalls:“ While we were doing the GKL kart day at Fulbeck I found a flier for the Rookie Racing academy and got in touch. They explained what they did, and how they did it, and we went down a couple of weeks later, straight into the Junior Rotax.”
The step up from indoor to outdoor karts did represent quite a jump in performance, but it did not deter Eloise –“ I had only ever done indoor karting for fun,” she says,“ so outdoor was a massive change. My first time out in a Rotax at Whilton Mill was a Championship weekend, so it was quite an intimidating experience, but I really enjoyed it.”
It was more nerve-wracking for Andrew watching from the sidelines.“ Handling the power with virtually no karting experience was quite eye-opening,” he recalls.“ Her first session was cold and wet – but that just made her even more excited and when she got a good lap in, she came back, took off her helmet and had a massive grin on her face!”
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