MOTOR RACING: The Richard Hughes Racing Team drivers had mixed fortunes at a rain soaked Rissington Kart Club meeting.

Alex Ashby and Peter Blakeney, both 17, qualified second and third on the grid in the huge Rotax Max field, but team leader Richard Hughes struggled.

Hughes was still suffering from an injury to his arm, which he incurred last week at Whilton Mill, but it became apparent that his kart suffered even more.

The Castle Eaton-based driver had a huge accident last week and the team thought they had fully repaired the kart, but whatever they did in practice, the kart would not perform.

On Sunday, it would not turn in to the corners on either a wet or dry track. In hindsight, they should have used a spare kart, but once it had been scrutineered, he had to stick with it.

Ashby and Blakeney revelled in the wet conditions and scored a one-two by a country mile in one of the qualifying heats.

Hughes meantime slipped further behind and started 16th on the grid for the final, the defending champion's lowest position for as long as anyone can remember.

In the final Ashby retired with a broken throttle cable, Blakeney was third behind Richard Brenton and the new club champion, Chris Dittman.

Hughes got up to eighth, but then dropped back as the handling difficulties showed themselves. He finally finished 10th.

n Peter Leppan of Covingham, racing in Junior Rotax, continued to show improvement, with some good driving in difficult conditions.

In the first of the heats some of the drivers were caught out by the greasy surface and Leppan was hit from behind and spun off the track.

He got going again but finished last. The next two heats saw him have far better drives, finishing eighth with some good overtaking, and an impressive third in the last heat .

This put him in sixth place for the final. He made a good start and moved up to fifth by the end of the first lap.

He ran in the train of about eight karts, but with such close racing something had to give, and this resulted in some contact which saw him bumped wide and two karts squeezed through.

Worse followed as he was again bumped, purely accidentally, which pushed him off the track.

He managed to keep it going and got back on the track and continued racing to finish in eighth but only seven seconds behind the leader.

David Baldwin, 14, from Malmesbury, had solid runs to finish seventh.

Leppan said: "I was disappointed with the final as I felt I was quite competitive but these things happen.

"Apart from the first heat, I had a good weekend and my third place gave me a real buzz."