Colbert receives silverware ahead of season finale

IT MAY have taken almost as long to receive his trophy as it did to win it, but Maghery youngster, Max Colbert finally got his hands on the Tullyallen Karting Championship title he won last term, just days before he concludes his maiden Ultimate Karting Championship campaign in England.

The Drumglass High School pupil has taken to life across the Irish Sea well, earning seven top 10 finishes, while consistently battling well inside the top 20 of what is a hugely competitive series.

The Junior Rotax racer is currently 15th in the overall standings, just 40 points shy of the top 10, ahead of the final round of the season at PFI this coming weekend when he will take part in four races, hoping to climb up the standings before the final chequered flag falls for 2025.

At the penultimate round, hosted at Warden Law, Max showed exceptional pace in the build up to qualifying but unfortunately he couldn’t turn that speed into a performance during his five minutes on track, which left him in a difficult position for the races.

Starting 17th on the grid left the 14 year-old with a tough task but he dug deep and managed to get through to the A final via the B final, but his Dad, Steve, a fellow racer and motorsport engineer, believes that’s all part of the learning curve his son is on.

“If you don’t qualify well you end up getting beaten up for two days,” he observed. “We’d been top eight, top nine, sometimes third and fourth in the sessions leading up [to qualifying] but we just got traffic on the last lap of qualifying and when that happens there’s nothing you can do.

“We just need to get better at track positioning for the four laps you get in qualifying. It’s a great learning experience and when you get it right it’s great but we need to get better at being able to adjust [track position] before you start the last lap [of qualifying].”

After this coming weekend’s action at PFI, Max and his family will turn their attentions to 2026 when the likelihood is he will return to the Junior Rotax class in the Ultimate Karting Championship.