Kate had a cracking time at Kimbolton for Round 2 of the Ultimate Karting Championship. Not just because she smashed her PB by almost half a second during the Friday practice, but also because she smashed a rib whilst racing. She was a bit over-enthusiastic with one of the kerbs, and heard and felt her rib snap as she launched the kart over the concrete. X-rays from today’s trip to A&E confirmed it. Yes, she had a broken rib. There’s not a lot you can do for a broken rib. Tak

If you haven’t watched it, Rush is a film about the rivalry between James Hunt and Niki Lauda as they fight against each other to become F1 world champion. It’s a great film. Go and watch it. Or more likely, stream it. (It came out 13 years ago.) Hunt and Lauda have completely different styles. Hunt is brash and self-confident, and Lauda is cool and calculating. Watch the film and decide which camp you’re in, or maybe you’re a bit of both. Rush. That’s what it feels like at t

Billed as the toughest endurance motoring event in Europe, Le Jog has pre-1991 classic cars making their way from Land’s End to John O' Groats, from the very bottom to the very top of the United Kingdom. Le Jog is a clever acronym for Land’s End to John O Groats. It’s billed as a ‘reliability trial’ because it’s as much a test on the car as it is a test on the driver and co-driver. That’s Land’s End to John O’ Groats in 4 days. Last weekend Kate did the equivalent distance in

If you're a Star Wars fan, you'll know that Han Solo made the Kessel Run in just 12 parsecs. If you're wondering what a parsec is, it's the distance at which 1 Astronomical Unit subtends an angle of 1/3600 of a degree. None the wiser? Just think fast, very fast. I don't think I'll ever be able to measure Kate's racing speed in light years, but I am hoping she'll be fast, very fast. We're due at Brands Hatch on Monday for some testing, and it'll be an opportunity for her to tr

If you're after the green and pleasant land that England is known for, the Fens are not it. 1500 square miles of reclaimed boggy wetland is not pretty and definitely not interesting. The Fens are flat though, and covering Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, and Suffolk, they made a perfect location for RAF bases during the 2nd world war. RAF Kimbolton, home to the 379th USAF Bomber Squadron, was one of them. And quite often, probably because being in the middle of the Fens

Well, maybe not ARD, but definitely ARDS. That's the Association of Racing Driver Schools. That's where you have to go to get your racing car license, and without that, you can't legally race. And that's why we were at Mallory Park race circuit very early on a Wednesday morning with the sun shining. Bizarrely, the race car that Kate had on the track had air conditioning. Everything else had been stripped from the car, except the air conditioning. Squeezed into the car was ro

Kate went through Hell last week. She was in Sweden competing in the final of Racing Women 's global racing competition. The driving was fine (despite being on ice). Hell was simply the name of the Norwegian village we travelled through to get to Åre in Sweden for the final. The remote lakes Kate raced on were actually further away, near Hotell Kallgården which served amazing Moose meatballs. Wikipedia states that Hell has a grocery store, a petrol station, a fast food shop,

“She’s got what it takes. Natural ability!” That’s what Graeme Glew, the founder and CEO of Racing Women , said when he stepped out of the car after a coaching session with Kate Broadbent at Bedford Autodrome . Kate’s getting some car racing practice in before the Racing Women driving-on-ice final in Sweden in March. And she was driving a BMW 2-litre twin-turbo M2 round Bedford Autodrome whilst Graeme shared his racing wisdom. She was beaming when she came off the track. “The

There’s a reason Volvo Amazons are banned from many classic car rallies. They’re made in Sweden. In Northern Sweden, winter lasts for 8 months, and roads are covered in ice for most of that time. If your car can survive daily driving in Sweden, it can easily survive a classic rally in the UK. And parts for a 1950s Volo Amazon are still readily available from Volvo! Why am I writing about Sweden? Kate Broadbent is a finalist in Racing Women’s global competition to find their n

Most people will probably do half a dozen sessions in their racing chassis. Kate has been karting pretty much non-stop in her gap year between A levels and university, and her racing chassis has done 38 sessions – a bit more than half a dozen. The last session at Shennington finished with a big crash (not her fault), and the chassis went off to ASR Fabrication to be straightened (again). One of Kate's chassis going off to ASR Fabrication to be straightened If you’ve done the

only us in the GMS awning at Whilton According to Google’s AI, the Hokey Cokey is a simple song and dance where you put body parts in and out and shake them all about. That sounds scarily similar to racing at Whilton Mill in the rain. Google’s AI also suggests the word “fun”, but that’s definitely not rain-racing at Whilton. Kate Broadbent signed up for the Whilton Mill WM Plate race weekend. Good practice we thought. An opportunity to get the final signature on Kate’s upgra

Joe Gethen, Miles Savage and Clive Broadbent trying to get Kate's kart going If there was such a thing as a 'team of the day' award, it...

Ask Google how fast the blink of an eye is, and its AI will come back and tell you it's a 1/100 of a second. That's pretty fast, but not...

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When I mentioned to a wise old Bayford karter that we were taking two karts to the Super One championship weekend at Fulbeck, he said...

Well, we’ve cracked the rib problem. The Bengio rib protector is doing its job. And even though Kate still needs to dose up on...

If you've been watching 'F1: The Academy' on Netflix you'd have spotted the likes of Bianca Bustamante preening herself in front of...

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Team ARD (left to right: Kate Broadbent, Lewis Smith, Gary Coombes [team principal], Kevin Schofield, Rob Lofting, Kris Kliczbor)...

If you're as old as I am, you might remember the pedoscope. It was an x-ray device used by Clarks to make sure shoes fitted correctly....