SPARKS Karting Challenge
22nd November 1997

For the fourth consecutive year, the Johnny Herbert Fan Club staged an endurance karting event to raise funds for the children’s charity, SPARKS (SPort Aiding medical Research for KidS). Once again, the venue was the excellent indoor kart circuit, The Raceway, in North London. This year, the fun event raised over £26,000 for SPARKS.

Twenty teams of six drivers gathered on a grey autumn morning to do battle in a good cause. Most were led by a professional racing driver, with the odd sprinkling of celebrities here and there. The star turns included Johnny, Alan McNish, Oliver Gavin and Jason Plato. Alan is one of the best British racers never (so far) to have made the big time. Olly comes in the same category, although he had a brief moment of fame this August when he led the Belgian GP for a few laps as driver of the Safety Car! Jason is now well known to tin-top fans as Alain Menu's team-mate at Williams-Renault in the British Touring Car Championship. Before he was famous, Jason filled in the Visitors' Book on this very website!

Johnny was pipped to pole position this year by karter Rick Parfitt Jr, Motoring News staffer and son of the more well known Parfitt of Status Quo fame (dad was nowhere in sight). Young Rick was standing in for James Kaye as leader of the Bramdean's Best team, who were to give Johnny's team, Herbie's Heroes, their stiffest competition of the day.

When the race finally got under way, Rick Parfitt took the lead from pole, but he was quickly under pressure from Johnny. Two laps in, Johnny's first attempt at taking the lead succeeded at the final corner, only to come unstuck at the first corner of the next lap, when Rick cheekily retook the position on the inside. But the status quo (!) didn't last. One lap later, Johnny had Mr Parfitt Jr again - and this time he pulled away in the lead. In this first stint, Johnny established the fastest lap of the first part of the 4 hour race with a 39.55s.

Disaster struck Herbie's Heroes soon after Johnny had handed over the driving baton to the team's number two, when the drive chain came off and the team dropped to 6th. This was the cue for a series of stirring drives by the team, led by Johnny, who cut down the fastest lap time of the day so far to 39.46s on his second stint at the wheel, and clocked a 39.33s on his third. Despite a fantastic 39.28s by Rick Parfitt, Bramdean's Best could do nothing about Herbie's Heroes, who were back in the lead and one lap in front of everyone by the two hour point.

Three quarters of the way through, saw Johnny out again stamping his authority over the other professional drivers. He soon had Olly Gavin in his sights and made short work of him coming out of the last corner. Jason Plato then found Johnny on his tail and the tin-top star began to weave about on the main straight to keep Johnny behind. But we were denied a great dice when Jason thought the better of it and dived into the pits to end his stint.

The other star of the track was Alan McNish who rose to the challenge of setting a new lap record for the slightly remodelled circuit. He put in lap after lap in the low 39s with an amazing consistency, finally posting a stupendous 39.05s to set the standard for everyone else to try and beat in the future. But the rest of his team couldn't come anywhere near his level of skill and they were never serious challengers for the lead.

In fact, no-one challenged Johnny's team again. They ended up victors over Bramdean's Best by a margin of 26.45s with the Ulster Kart Club third, 2 laps down and Jamie Spence's Driving Ambition team fourth, a further 2 laps behind. The drama of last year's close finish wasn't repeated but it was still great entertainment and fun. And no-one tried to pull a Schumacher to take the title...

After the race, there was a fantastic auction of memorabilia and other items including:

Damon Hill Gloves in frame with certificate (failed to reach the reserve of £750)
Visit to Jordan Grand Prix Factory for 10 people
A painting and several excellent photos of Johnny in his Sauber
Two Red Bull Sauber Shirts
One Red Bull Sauber V Neck Jumper
A pair of Johnny's Sauber overalls (failed to reach the reserve of £3,000)
A V.I.P. day out for 2 people with Tyrrell at a Silverstone Test Session
Flight to a Grand Prix
Champagne Signed by all Celebrities
Chris Rea signed CD's ("La Passione" soundtrack)

This and a raffle all helped to swell the stupendous proceeds raised for SPARKS, which were £6,000 up on last year's magnificent total. A big thanks to everyone who took part and to the organisers, particularly Roy Craig who once again worked tremendously hard to make the event a success.

Oh, and just in case you missed it, before the race started, Johnny gave David Cunliffe an exclusive interview for the website...

There's also another report on the Charity Karting by David Tremayne.

Article and photographs © copyright David Cunliffe. All rights reserved.
Please send any comments or feedback to d.cunliffe@btinternet.com.
This page prepared 30th November 1997