Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Callum making his mark
Karting
Finding your passion in life isn’t always an easy task.
For Callum Gunning, an 11- year-old pupil from Herne Bay High, the thrill of driving a kart at high speeds around a track didn’t appeal straight away.
Yet, a few years after telling his father he didn’t like karting, Callum finds himself third in the Bayford Meadows Honda Cadet Clubman Championships after winning round four on Sunday.
After trying the sport again while on holiday in Great Yarmouth, Callum, with the help of his father, Simon, joined the 2013 Junior Club Championship at Bayford Meadows in Sittingbourne, finishing seventh, before winning the 13/14 Junior Club Winter Championship.
What makes past and current successes even more impressive is the fact that father and son are doing this on their own.
Simon said: “It’s been going well but we’re pretty much the only lad and dad there as everyone else is racing out of a team, which is possibly a little bit of a disadvantage for us”.
For Callum, it’s all about competing. He said: “I like the racing part of it. I tried bikes but didn’t like two wheels. I prefer four wheels because it’s more stable.”
Despite his preference for four-wheel stability, Callum grew up watching MotoGP and considers legend Valentino Rossi as his idol.
His passion for karting is such that he hopes to carry it on, with dreams of becoming a Formula 1 driver.
However, he knows such a path is full of difficulties, mostly due to funding. As Simon explains, getting the right publicity is the hardest part of all.
He said: “You’ve got to start somewhere but we know we have to put ourselves in the right
shop window and we probably can’t afford to do that on a national level.
“We’re probably going to move up to the Junior Subaru Class towards the end of the year and then maybe move on to two-stroke but that’s when it starts to become really expensive. They’re going to chew through a lot of tyres.” With five meetings left before the end of the season, a few more wins like the one at the weekend will hopefully help Callum get the recognition he deserves.