2012 Season
| Ronan fly's to first at Fulbeck. 22nd Jan 2012 Continuing his good start to 2012 Ronan Quinn won the firsts round of the Fulbeck Winter series. Ronan's main challenger was Lucas Vaus who has been a regular winner at Fulbeck in 2011. Ronan won all three heats by a good margin but Vaus improved his pace significantly for the final and a fantastic dice ensued. Showing good respect for each other, the pair put on a fantastic display, swapping the lead position at least 6 times up to lap 10 of the 15 lap final. From lap 11 Ronan gained a small edge and was delighted to win his first Comer Cadet final at the famous Lincolnshire track by less than 1 second. |
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Ronan tops table at Kimbolton. 9th Jan 2012 Ronan made a fantastic start to the 2012 season with a strong showing at Kimbolton on 8th Jan. All the top drivers in the country where present as they prepare for the first round of the British championship at Kimbolton in April. In the first heat from grid 30 Ronan climbed to 10th and in the second heat Ronan fought a great battle with current club champion Lewis Taylor for the lead. Ronan made a clean and majestic move on the final corner to take his first win at the Kimbolton Circuit. |
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2011 Season
Posted 12.12.11
Ronan has continued to race well throughout November with a fifth at Kimbolton, fourth at Fulbeck and 13th out of 36 entries at PF in December. A full grid of stars drivers lined up at PF and despite not being able to practice on Saturday due to other commitments, Ronan ran strongly in heat 1. In heat 2 he came from the back of grid up to 10th only to be punted on the last lap which dropped him to 17th which meant he was on grid 19 for the final. Just minutes before our final it rained so it was a quick change of tyres. About half the grid where unfairly given extended time to change sprockets aswell so this meant a really tough race with no bottom end. However Ronan still fought through from 19th to 12th by the last lap, just losing one place as a team driver choose to use Ronan as his break on the last corner, lifting Ronan's rear wheels off the ground. Somehow he managed to avoid spinning and made it to the finish. A week later the top teams where all at Kimbolton as we competed in the last round of the club championship. A strong 6th in the first heat placed Ronan on grid 8th, among the Fusion and Eclipse drivers. Ronan made an excellent start and had great battles throughout the race coming in 9th.
Posted 7.11.11
All the top teams where at PF on 5.11.11 and Ronan showed great form coming through from qualifying 14th (after one bad heat) to 8th. Lying 12th after the first lap Ronan reduced the 2 second deficit to the next group of three karts including Cameron Roberts and Matthew Graham and one by one started to progress through. It was close fair racing with Ronan finally getting on top on the last lap when the others went defensive and coming out of the S bend for the last time Ronan got a fantastic run and swept by.
Posted 24.10.11
Ronan's competitiveness dipped June through September but despite this he has continued to battle hard in all his races and has improved his race craft significantly. Despite his frustration, Ronan has endured this period with great maturity and perseverence and after some consideration we decided to try the latest Zip chassis. After a successful test we arrived at Fulbeck last weekend with much higher expectations and Ronan duely delivered with his first head to head victory over the talented club champion Jack Bliss and setting an impressive fastest lap of 53.07!
Posted 14.06.11
Another strong race at Fulbeck in May gave us a very close second to the talented Jack Bliss. In fact we led from lap 3 to the last lap.
Posted 23.04.11
Today we raced at Fulbeck with Ronan finishing a strong second to Jack Bliss. Starting on grid two Ronan was knocked wide at the first corner and dropped to fifth. From there Ronan fought back through to second place by lap 5 and then set about reeling in Jack Bliss who had a 3-4 second lead. Both drivers where lapping in the low 53's and at the end Ronan was just 1.9 seconds down with the consolation of making the fastest lap.
Posted 11.04.11
Ronan competed in another thrilling and very competitive meeting at Kimbolton yesterday. With a grid of 25 karts Ronan qualified 6th after setting his first ever official fastest race lap in Heat 1. Our best lap in final was 2/10s down from the heats but nevertheless Ronan drove maturely to finish a strong 7th, just 5 seconds behind the winner Ellis Hanks and closing quickly on the drivers in 4th to 6th. In fact we had a good battle with Hanks in heat 3 but on the last lap Ronan's kart got caught on his rear bumper as he approached the fast Kestral corner. Ronan found his kart wouldn't turn and so both drivers ended up going straight on. Fortunately Hank's race wasn't ruined as he ended up cutting out the last corner and jumped from 6th to 3rd which the Clerk let stand in view of the incident. The Clerk accepted Ronan's explanation of what happened and no action was taken. I apologised to the Hank's for the incident and was pleased that they went on to win the final.
Posted 14.03.11
Another milestone was achieved in Ronan's career yesterday when he led his first Comer Cadet race at Kimbolton. Competing against a grid of 26 drivers and several British championship regulars, Ronan shot straight into then lead at turn one from the second row. He built up a lead of 2-3 seconds and drove with great confidence but alas had to give way to some of the older boys towards the end of the race. This has given Ronan a real confidence boost and he now realises that he can mix it with the best.
Posted 14.02.11
Ronan has now done three races in 2011 and he continues to grow in confidence and drive very well. He got a fine third at Fulbeck, finishing right behind first and second so a win is definately in sight. At Kimbolton yesterday he set the 5th fastest time in the second heat but unfortunately this pace wasn't carried into the final due to the carb settings going awry!
Posted 01.01.11
For the 2011 season Ronan will be competing in the Kimbolton, Fulbeck and PFI circuits club championship. We have decided not to bother with the Stars or S1 championships which just seem to get more ridiculous every year as indicated by the falling numbers. Ronan looks forward to the challenge of national racing when equal engines are made availabe at an affordable price for everyone.
Posted 5.12.10
With the December Club championship race at PF being cancelled Ronan has secured the 2010 PF Club Championship. Ronan at 10 is one of the youngest winners and joins Lewis Hamilton as a previous winner. We are all so pleased and proud of him. Ronan alone deserves the credit for this championship. He has had to battle against club competitors with Stars level engines and 45 drivers at some rounds. One of the highlights of the season for me was his race long battle with Oliver York, the Zip Young Guns driver who he ultimately beat to take a very important 4th place finish.
Posted 8.11.10
Ronan took the lead of the PF Comer Cadet club championship yesterday after a fantastic drive in the final. We had good pace on practice day but got punctures in Heats 1 & 2. Despite this Ronan still finished both heats (really don't know how) and lined up 23 for the final. Ronan made a good start and progressed up through the quality grid. In the end we got up to 15th before he eased off a little too much on the final lap and Jack Leese, the Fusion driver got him back leaving us 16th.
Posted 6.09.10
Had a brief chat with a top works team manager yesterday. I explained my lad was 10 and about 1 second off the fastest Stars pace and what did he think we should do to close the gap. I was astonished by the answer which was "employ a private tutor and get him in the kart 4 days every week". Presumably that was after I had paid him £10k for some top motors! No thanks. I have no doubt that if you take a 9 or 10 year old and hot house him you will make him quicker. But is a child mentally ready for such a life and what might the long term mental health implications be if ultimately the child is not successful.
Posted 29.08.10
Ronan's Comer engines are now being looked after by Tony Rodgers at Tred-Power.com. Despite being based in Lisburn, N. Ireland, Tony is always available to us by phone over a race weekend and we have seen a significant improvement in engine setup and performance.
Posted 01.06.10
Ronan Quinn Racing is a private kart team with the simple aim of running Ronan and allowing him to pursue his racing ambitions. Some might calls us a lad and Dad outfit and we take no offence in that as we believe that is what Cadet Karting should be all about. However as you will find out if you are new to karting it is very difficult for just a lad and Dad to succeed. Fortunately we are very lucky and our good friend Paul Sketchley comes to all our races and provides expert mechanical support.
Obviously the professional teams have certain advantages over us as accumulated knowledge and multiple karts on track at a given time allows teams to explore different setup's very quickly. On the other hand Ronan knows everything we do is focused around him and at the end of the day if we don't get it right we can only blame ourselves.
The key thing if you are a privateer is you need to adopt a totally professional approach. MSA Karting is simply too expensive to be just doing it for a bit of fun.