Indeed, just one top ten finish – a fifth place – from his three heats and ninth from tenth on the grid in the final were far from what Tom has become accustomed to of late, and corroborated his complaint that his mount was severely lacking in both front end grip and straight-line speed. Wholesale changes overnight, however, saw the kart transformed and allowed Tom to speed to a trio of top ten finishes in the heats on Sunday.
“I definitely felt a lot more confident in it and was able to make moves where I couldn't before,” the Junior Max rookie asserted. “I knew I had to make all the time up on the brakes mid-corner and get early on the throttle again, and if I could stay with them a bit in a straight line I had a chance. But to do that I had to get the tight and twisty section right every time.
“I had some very good heats. In the third one I got lunged at the first corner, a couple of karts went wide and I got hooked onto someone's bumper! That dropped me back down outside the top ten, but I managed to make my way back up again into third. I don't think a lot of people expected me to come through that quickly or easily.”
It was a magnificent effort, and one that helped to earn the Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year a deserved fourth spot on the grid for the final, matching his highest starting position of the year from Llandow and Genk. It also maintained Tom's flawless run of top ten qualifying performances in every round in 2007, and marked his fourth top six start in the last five outings.
“As we waited on the grid the rain was getting worse, the track wetter and the puddles deeper,” he recounted. “Throughout the race I was just concentrating on the driver in front of me and what I was doing. You literally couldn't see anything, even the spray off your own front wheels. I was aquaplaning all the way down the straight!”
After running a strong third for the opening three laps, Tom was subsequently demoted by Matthew Mason before the race was stopped five laps early following a smash just behind him on the main straight.
![Leading Junior Max ace Tom Ingram races on during the prestigious '0' Plate meeting at Whilton Mill in 2007 [pic credit: Chris Walker/www.kartpix.net]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/365392.jpg)
