MSR’s Memorable Moments – 2012 F6 Season Finale

With everything that is going on in the world right now, we are taking a trip down memory lane and taking a look back on our own motorsport memories. Edition three sees Mason Ruff step back into Karting, where, like many young aspiring racers he’d caught the bug.

My story is a bit different to most. My story will not be about me attending an event and witnessing something great, but me participating in the final round of the Formula 6 Karting Championship back in 2012, a race weekend which stayed in my mind as my favourite race weekend of my life.

After a long and tough season, I went into the final round of racing at Buckmore Park Karting in Chatham, Kent. I was in P2 in the championship with the driver leading the points still beatable. That however was unknown to 12 year old me, who had been told by my parents that the championship was over and the best I could do is second place.

Although in reality I could still win, I would just have to not only qualify on pole, I’d have to win every race and the final along with fastest lap in the final to be champion in 2012. While I was completely oblivious to this, the practice the day before we looked fast and with a shot of winning, with everything on the kart’s side of things running smoothly. It was just down to me the following day, at a track I was never that keen on, after being knocked out twice going into turns 1 & 2 (Henry’s Bend) in previous visits.

The sunday arrived and the morning shakedown practice session begun and lone behold, I was fastest with my rival in P2. The same then happened in qualifying. I qualified on pole position with my rival alongside in P2 and a close friend of mine in P3, who will became important later in the day. The opening heat begun and I held the lead from a rolling start with the top three drivers remaining in qualifying order. On paper it would be an uneventful race with the top three drivers pulling clear of the rest of the field, as all three drivers took the flag with their positions unchanged.

The same thing happened in heat 2 with myself and the two other top qualifiers pulling away from the rest of the grid and all three of us, once again, simply taking the points and building towards the final.

Pre-final time, and the finishing positions here would dictate the starting grid for the final race of the year. So far I’d done everything I needed to in order to keep my championship hopes alive with the clean sweep of heat wins and fastest laps. The same then occurred in the pre-final but this time with myself winning and claiming fastest lap, and my friend who had been finishing in 3rd place all day making the move for 2nd place late on in the race, denying my rival the points.

Going into the championship deciding race it was myself lining up on pole position after being the driver to beat all day, still unaware that I could win the championship. As far as I was concerned, I just wanted to win the last race of the year. Alongside me on the front row was a driver out of contention, though in third place was my rival who’d I’d been trading wins with all year.

The race begins and for the first half all seems calm, with myself out front and the two behind staying put in order to build a gap to the rest of the field. Although just beyond the half way mark, my rival made his attack, firstly taking 2nd place and then 2 laps later taking the lead from myself. Bear in mind that this was the first lap I hadn’t lead the race all day. These two drivers had been studying my racing lines and knew exactly where to pass me and now I had the same opportunity but with 3 laps to do it in. Strong defensive driving was undertaken by my rival now out in front, in hope he could take the victory and take the championship with him.

The start of the final lap of the season and as it had been all day, it was a train of three drivers making their way around the joint turns 1 and 2. The leader defending his line into the hairpin on turn 3 and again defending the inside line into the second hairpin of turn 4.

In order to overtake the leader I had to pass him where no one expected and realistically the only place I could do it would be into the downhill sweeping right hander of turn 7 which immediately switches left into a heavy breaking point. I had to go semi defensive to prevent the driver behind catching me off guard, but I had the run off the corner to make the move down the hill.

As we came out the flat out chicane of turns 5 and 6 I dove to the inside with two wheels on the edge of the kerb about to fall of the track, quickly carrying the momentum around the outside of turn 8 and sealing the overtake with 3 corners to go. The last three corners I was able to take a semi defensive line as the overtake I had pulled gave me the gap I needed to take the win in the final and with that, steal the championship away on the final lap of the season.

Reminisant of Hamilton in Brazil 2008, except my overtake was not on a struggling Timo Glock stuck on sticks tyres on a wet track, and watched by nowhere near as many people. As I pulled into the pits and got myself and the kart weighed. My parents let it slip that they had lied to me about not being able to win the championship and I’d just won. As you can guess I was quite overjoyed.

That year I actually went on to win two championships with the first being the Formula 6 Honda Cadet championship and also winning the Lydd Kart Circuit Honda Cadet Championship. If you ever go to Lydd Kart Circuit in the club house, there is still a photo of myself winning that championship on the wall.

I would never have been able to do what I did, and still do, if it wasn’t for my parents spending every weekend in different parts of the country with my racing. Yes it is a very competitive sport but its loved by all of my family and we have met some of our best friends through racing.

Thanks for reading my recap of one of the most memorable seasons of my racing career and I hope you guys enjoyed it! Stay safe during this time and hopefully we can all be back watching or participating in motorsport in due course.

Previously in MSR’s Memorable Moments: Andy Lloyd spoke of his Le Mans Disaster and Nigel Chiu looks back at his Oulton Park excursion.