The Welsh Championship will now be run with the club meeting on the 17th August 2008.

Would you like to support the club by doing the monthly lottery and be in for a chance of winning prizes every month. Click here for the form to fill out.

For more information click here.

The AGM is also being held in the Llanharry Social Club.

The Awards evening is being held on the 19th January 2008 in LLanharry Social Club.

Buffet £5.50 Per Head.

The Celtic Championship is coming back soon. Get your entry in and lets see some good dressing up like previous years. It will be good to see a few more people dress up this year!!

The Celtic Championship has traditionally been the most enjoyable event of the year to finish the season off ready for Christmas.

The welsh championship is back for 2007!! It is just around the corner on the 18th and 19th of August. It is a 2 day event and has been a great sucess in previous years. Please get you entries in on time.

For an entry form click Here. The SR's are on the entry form page if you need them. Lets have another great turn out for 2007 get entering.

Gwyn Latcham has organised the 2nd endurance at Llandow for Wednesday the 11th July. For more details on this event go to the notice board using this link here.

Llandow Kart Club will be running a winter series for the first time, with the Janurary and February club meetings to count.

With the TKM Super One and Stars of Tomorrow all visting the South Wales Circuit in 2007, entries are expected from up and down the UK in classes from Cadet (Honda & Comer) to ICC. The Cadet, Junior TKM 2 and 4 Stroke, Senior TKM 4 Stroke and Senior Honda classes are expected to be particularly successful.

The dates will be January 28th and February 25th, both will count for the championship and will include 3 heats and a final. As always, prizes will be awarded for the top finishers in each class.

All potential competitors need to do is join the club for 2007 via the form available on the entry form page or from the Competition Secretary and enter the race meeting as normal. For more information call Competition Secretary Colin Lipscomb on 01685 874814 after 6pm.

19th January 2007 AGM will be held at :-

Three Horse Shoes

Moulton, Nr Barry

Upstairs in the Restaurant.

8pm Start - Please attend.

6th January 2007 Presentation evening will be held at :-

Wenvoe Community Hall

Old Port Road

Wenvoe

South Glamorgan

CF5 6AN

Starts at 7.30pm. - Tickets:£6.50 pp -   Includes Buffet & Disco

Llandow welcomes Formula and Junior Blues to the club meetings at llandow. For more information about the classes please visit www.planetkarting.co.uk/

With another session of the Junior Race School now in the history books Llandow Kart Club would like to welcome several new drivers to the fray.

This month should see new entries in Cadet, Junior Honda and Junior TKM including spring session winner Joshua Martin.

More race school graduates are still preparing for their ARKS tests and should join the fun later this year.

Llandow Kart Club would like to thank all those who turned up at the Red Bull Track Attack Final in Cardiff Bay recently to help distribute leaflets.

The 2006 BRDC Stars of Tomorrow Championship ran its first two rounds at Rowrah.

Results are listed with the two Final results followed by the points positions.

JMAX: Daryl Henderson 11th, 7th, 7th

MINI: Macaulay Walsh 9th, 6th, 6th

MINI: JJ Wilson 10th, DNF, 13th

CADET: Steven Handford 13th (B), 14th (B), 42nd

CADET: Sam Parrant DNS (B), 15th (B)

ICC UK: Dan Rodde 10th, 11th, 14th

ICC UK: Bjorn Rodde 12th, 12th, 15th

Who’s been misbehaving so far this year at Llandow.

CLASS                     WARNINGS                    DQ

Senior Max                        4                          2

Senior Pro                         8                          0

Junior TKM                         5                          0

Junior Max                         4                          0

Junior Pro                          2                          0

Junior Honda                      1                          0

Concerns over the Vega SL8 tyres used in the Max classes have been calmed with news from Vega Italy that the pin holes that have appeared in some tyres does not adversely affect performance.

The legendary ‘Blue Book,’ which every karter has read from cover to cover (!!!) is to be completely re-written for the 2007 season.

In a bid to make the book easier to understand, each different formulae will have its own specific book, including karting.

The Formula 6 Championship continues apace, keeping all the LKC drivers entered in the series more than busy with two rounds in May.

In the races at Lydd and Bayford Meadows there were several top five showings for Llandow driver with Thomas Newton (Biland) taking third at Lydd, Carly Latcham (JTKM4) finishing third at Bayford and Steven Handford (Cadet) placing fourth at Bayford.

There were other top ten finishes for Nicholas Jones in Prokart, Gareth Evans in Junior TKM 4 Stroke, Ashley Davies in Biland and Kim Latcham in Cadet.

It was another mixed bag for the Llandow bunch in a controversial third round of the Super One TKM series at Whilton Mill.

Here’s how they stacked up.

STKM4 Chris Lipscomb (Final) DNF, (Championship) 9th

JTKM4/ Dafydd Iles 17th, 3rd

JTKM4/ Oliver Bourton 9th, 14th

JTKM4/ Carly Latcham 13th, 7th

JTKM4/ Gareth Evans 16th, 16th

JTKM4/ Ryan Howells 19th, 20th

JTKM4/ George Blundell 12th, 17th

Cadet Honda Liam Jones 4th, 6th

JTKM2/ Lewis Burnett  24th, 17th

Club history was made on Sunday May 28th when three members of the same family all won their respective classes.

Kimberly, Carly and Gwyn Latcham all won with Kim taking her first win in Cadet Honda, Carly holding off a class Junior TKM Four Stroke field and Gwyn narrowly beating a large Senior Honda grid.

The May meeting was the last club meeting where Prokarters were allowed to volumise their engines. From now on, all K, E and T spec engines are to run to their original specification with NO volumising at all so be warned as head checks will be in force.

The club would like to remind all Junior and Senior Prokarters that the ABkC O Plate next month (June 25th) costs £45 to enter, not £40. That price does not include Saturday practice, if required.

South Wales Karting Centre’s 2006 Summer Junior Race Academy starts at 9am on Sunday June 11th for those who want to lend a hand.

South Wales Karting Centre would like to remind all drivers that there will be no practice on the weekend of June 17th and 18th owing to the running of the British Mini Moto Championship. The circuit apologies for any inconvenience.

Due to the fact that we have the RAF racing with us at the May meeting we will have to stop Saturday practice slightly early due to their traditional four hour Prokart endurance on Saturday night. Practice will therefore conclude at some point between 4:30 and 5pm.

Please get to the track early on Saturday 27th May if you wish to practice as we also have a round of the Biland Super Series on the weekend so the track will be busy from opening time at 10am.

 
The RAF Endurance is open to club members with the following regulations:
 
Drivers must be 16 and have an MSA license, although an Endurance License will do and they cost £10. Single engine Honda karts are allowed and all classes (Prokarts and singles) run on Maxxis HG1 (white) slicks, which can be bought on the weekend.
 
Entry fee for club teams is £60 and the minimum weight limit for a team is 400 kilos (kart and all drivers). Club teams don’t have to be part of the RAF Club and therefore don’t have to have a member of the RAF on their team although you won’t be counted on the official results. If there are six teams entered from the club however, the RAF will create an extra class for the club teams to race in.

The race is four hours and will start at around 5/5:30pm depending on when practice finishes.

Llandow Kart Club are pleased to announce that the 2006 ABkC O Plate for Junior Honda, Senior Honda and Senior World Formula (not Cadet or TKM) will take place at Llandow on the weekend of June 24th/25th alongside the regular club meeting.

This is a fantastic opportunity for drivers to sample Llandow’s extended 1100 metre circuit and the club’s friendly atmosphere as well as get experience of the track ahead of the Welsh Championships (Jul 15-16), the ABkC Internations (Sept 1-3), the NKF (Sept 17) the Biland O Plate (Oct 29) and the Celtic Championship (Dec 10), all of which take place at Llandow this year. 

Entry Fees are £80 per driver, including a full day of practice on Saturday and £65 for a second family member with big grids guaranteed in both Honda classes.

Honda engines must comply with the Ratpro Honda technical regulations dated February 2005 Issue 2 as published on the Ratpro website. Please note this is not as per the MSA Gold Book.

Entry forms can be downloaded from this website, with drivers asked to place ‘O PLATE’ on the regular entry form.

Entry forms to be POSTED (not faxed) to the LKC Competition Secretary Julie Lipscomb, 37 Monk Street, Aberdare, Mid Glamorgan, CF44 7RF. Phone 01685 874814 (6:30-9pm only). Entries must be received (including all paperwork) by Wednesday June 21st.

Llandow KC would like to congratulate Tony Govier, father of Junior TKM driver Damian, on completing the recent London Marathon. In his first Marathon, Tony completed the course in 4 hours 48 minutes 29 seconds, more than half an hour quicker than Sir Steve Redgrave and raised more than £1000 for charity CLIC.

Things weren’t too rosy for the Llandow bunch in round two of the Super One TKM series at Kimbolton.

Here’s how they stacked up.

STKM4 Chris Lipscomb (Final) 15th, (Championship) 7th

JTKM4/ Dafydd Iles 5th, 2nd

JTKM4/ Oliver Bourton DQ, 15th

JTKM4/ Carly Latcham 9th, 5th

JTKM4/ Gareth Evans 16th, 16th

JTKM4/ Ryan Howells 19th, 20th

JTKM4/ George Blundell 15th, 17th

Cadet Honda Liam Jones 7th, 8th

JTKM2/ Lewis Burnett  18th, 15th

Three Llandow drivers ventured to Buckmore Park for the second round of the F6 Championship, all enjoying success.

Thomas Newton took third in the Intermediate Biland class while Nicholas Jones was an impressive fourth in Senior Prokart.

Steven Handford completed the Llandow runners with a fifth place showing in Cadet Honda.

The O Plate for Junior and Senior Honda and World Formula will take place at Llandow on June 25th on the same weekend as the club meeting.

In the Senior class, E, K and T spec engines are allowed but no volumising while in Junior Honda it is T1 engines only, fitted with three GX160 head gaskets (minimum of 1 mm each).

In the senior class, there are 12+ entries already, so get your entries in soon, this is going to be a great race!

In juniors we have 5 entries so far, with a minimum of 6 drivers required for the class to go ahead.

The ABkC have passed a new ruling whereby competitors need to have their five signatures plus ARKS test to move on from novice status and gain qualifications for a National A licence, plus another five race signatures before they are allowed to enter national championships.

Competitors looking to enter the 2007 Super One or BRDC Stars of Tomorrow are therefore pre-warned of the need to collect these signatures.

Who’s been misbehaving so far this year at Llandow?

CLASS                WARNINGS                        DQ

Senior Max                        2                          1

Senior Pro                         6                          0

Junior TKM                         3                          0

Junior Pro                          2                          0

Junior Max                         2                          0

Recommendations are being put forward to the Kart Sporting Committee to increase the upper age for Cadet classes to the end of the year of the 13th birthday so smaller young drivers can stay in the class if desired. 

It is also likely that the 2007 junior class Regs will include a maximum kart weight including ballast so small drivers do not progress into a class where they would be forced to carry too much ballast. The maximum ballast per kart is likely to be set somewhere between 25kg and 30kg.

The 2006 season at Llandow narrowly avoided being thrown into disarray last month as some of the heaviest rains ever seen at the circuit threatened to call a halt to proceedings before the finals.

With the two other race meetings in the South West region also being held on March 26th falling victim to the weather, the club have earned praise from all corners for keeping the meeting going in the face of adversity.

The rains may have caused the meeting to overrun slightly, but aside from an earlier than scheduled lunchbreak, the club weren’t forced to reduce the number of laps in any of the races and as a result, avoided disappointing what was a very high entry for the month of March.

Unlike the 2004 TKM O Plate, which had to be stopped due to heavy rain in October 2004, the combination of weather radar tracking on the internet, some thorough sweeping by the marshals and a slight alteration to the warm-up lap procedure, allowed the meeting to proceed as normal with skies even brightening for the last couple of finals.

Two drivers may have packed up and gone home early, claiming that conditions were too dangerous to race in, but the remaining 58 stayed, a decision that especially pleased many of the Cadet and Junior dads who were eager to give their drivers the extra wet weather experience.

Apart from one incident in the third Formula Rotax heat when Chris Davies piled into a broadside Dan Stacey coming out of the NGK Kink before slamming into the tyre barriers protecting the unused marshal point on the inside of Raymond’s hairpin and another in the Junior TKM Four Stroke final, all the wet weather races ran without injury, further vindicating the decision to press on with the meeting.

However, the rains did highlight several areas of the track where drainage will need to improve, notably on the warm-up lap cut-through at the bottom of the circuit and the run from the first new corner into McWhirters. The usual puddles on the entrance to The Hook and on the exit of Chandlers were also a concern when coupled to the rivers running backwards down the track from McWhiters to the first new corner as well as another stream flowing from left to right half way down the run to Chandlers.

“The Club would like to extend its thanks to the race officials for keeping the meeting running,” stated a rather damp spokesperson on Sunday evening. “We had some luck with the weather in the end and we can learn a lot from today for when the next time the Welsh weather lives up to its reputation.”

Llandow Kart Club are seeking assistance in their efforts to bolster the number of race weekend officials at the club.

A trainee timekeeper is sought in order to help Margaret Evans as are club stewards, on-track observers and scrutineers so as to ease the load on our current roster.

Any enquiries should be directed to Hardy Rodde, Richard Dowers or Peter Jones.

Although John Goddard gave many drivers a break in February, all competitors MUST have steering column safety collets AND metal seat plates on their karts in March.

Who’s been misbehaving so far at Llandow.

CLASS                  WARNINGS                 DQ

Senior Max                    1                          1

Senior Pro                     3                          0

Junior TKM                     2                          0

Junior Pro                      1                          0

Junior Max                     1                          0

Competitors have been reminded about keeping clear and easily readable numbers on their karts after several cases of mistaken identity in February.

Ripped, torn and scuffed numbers must be replaced during the day as drivers can be penalised for not displaying clear digits.

Following further tests with the new Cadet WTP B5 engine the MSA have deferred the introduction of the new engine until further notice.

The MSA have made several amendments to the 2006 ‘Blue Book’ including changing the Junior Gearbox wet tyre from a Dunlop KT8 to a Dunlop KT10 and several amendments to the Rotax regulations.

Changes for the Max classes include clarification on the Dell’orto VHSB 34 QD or QS carburettors  and the introduction of a rule permitting competitors to have a single 8mm maximum diameter hole positioned in a central location of the lower half of the airbox  using the area of the injection mould marks as a guide.

Nine LKC members were at the opening round of the Super One TKM series at Buckmore Park.

Here’s how they stacked up.

STKM4 Chris Lipscomb (Final) 13th, (Championship) 8th

JTKM4/ Dafydd Iles 2nd, 2nd

JTKM4/ Oliver Bourton 3rd, 4th

JTKM4/ Carly Latcham 8th, 6th

JTKM4/ Gareth Evans 14th, 14th

JTKM4/ Ryan Howells 20th, 19th

JTKM4/ George Blundell DNF, 18th

Cadet Honda Liam Jones 8th, 10th

JTKM2/ Lewis Burnett  9th, 7th

Llandow Kart Club will be making changes to their racing surface for the second year in succession this summer as ‘Last Lap’ can exclusively reveal plans to remove several of the teeth rattling bumps that currently reside in the cut through used on warm-up laps and the first lap of the races.

With the debut for the Super ICC class and the arrival of the well-supported Northern Kart Federation Gearbox Championship in September expected to draw grids of 30, the resurfacing is essential for safety reasons.

Already the ICC Karts are getting airborne through the cut-through, and there are fears that with a large grid of the 100mph beasts, the destabalising effects of the bumps could trigger a major accident.

South Wales Karting Centre has already increased the height of the tyre barrier on the outside of the cut-through especially for the Gearbox classes and other additions to the barriers could also be put in place in the coming weeks.

The cut-through, which was introduced during the 2003 season in an effort to halt the number of accidents occuring in the Hook on the first lap, but while the new tarmac alleviated one set of problems, it did create several new ones.

In September 2003 Prokarter Nigel Kent was tipped upside down during practice going through the new section and was lucky to escape serious injury while in April last year, Cadet drivers JJ Wilson and Macaulay Austin both went off at high speed after the cut-through and were also lucky to escape injury.

In August 2005 when Stars of Tomorrow made their third visit to the track and their first with the ICC Gearbox class, the bumps in the cut-through were among the only criticisms of the new circuit and with that championship almost certainly set to return to Llandow in 2007, the resurfacing could be a key feather in Llandow’s cap as the circuit continues to try and establish itself as a permanent fixture on every major championship calendar in the country.

In addition to the cut-through resurfacing, speculation continues to mount over the future of Raymond’s famous slippery surface as well as the track in the NGK Kink, which appears to have become even greasier over the winter months.

While the circuit is trying to push for a complete resurfacing project from the exit of The Dell to the Start/Finish line in an effort to halt the number of accidents seen on the corporate karts, especially in the wet, many MSA drivers see the different surface as an extra challenge of what is already an extremely difficult circuit to find a good balance for.

Llandow KC member Nick Jones passed his ARDS test in January at the Anglesey circuit in North Wales.

After several test drives in Proton’s and Mini’s, Nick passed the test first time with Andrew Crighton’s Advent Motorsport team but turned down the offer of a race drive in favour of focusing on exams and challenging for Llandow’s Senior Prokart title.

Quite right too!

More than half of the ten club rounds this year will enjoy visits from outside series, something that will help bolster grids throughout the year.

The lucrative Biland Super Series will race twice at Llandow during the course of the year, as will the NKRA Southern Regional runners while the NKF Gearbox classes and the Honda O Plate will enjoy a single visit to the circuit. All series will run alongside club meetings.

Llandow KC want to increase their roster of marshals in 2006.

In addition to the ten club rounds, Llandow will also play host to the Welsh Championships, the Celtic Championship, the Internations, Club 100 as well as the British Mini Moto and Metrakit Championships.

Ideally the club are looking for people who can commit to most, if not all, 17 ‘race’ weekends in 2006. If any of the current members have an enthusiastic friend/relative who may be up for the task, let us know.

All marshals must be 16 years of age and have a genuine passion for karting and motorsport in general.

29 – 7 – 04 Big prizes for Senior TKM 4
Strokers in
September

25 – 7 – 04 Lipscomb takes 2nd
as Super 2 hits
Llandow

24 – 7 – 04 – Dan and Chris 1-2 again at F6 Clay

4 – 7 – 04 - Llandow Karters take 1-2 at Super 1
Lydd

27 – 6 – 04 Llandow Karters battle on in Stars ofTomorrow.

20 – 6 – 04 – Best Super 2 result to date for Latcham
at Crail.

6 – 6 – 04 – Lipscomb makes Super 2 history in Scotland.

29 – 5 – 04 – Mixed day for Llandow Karters at F6
Sandown Park

23 – 5 – 04 Llandow Karters sweep Super 1 podium
at Larkhall

15 – 5 – 04 More F6 Glory for Llandow Karters at Bayford.

12-05-04 Attention all Cadet Honda and Junior
TKM Four-Stroke Drivers

12-05-04 Michael Schumacher Kart heads for
Llandow