Ed back on track with a win
The injury that has plagued David Beckham and Wayne Rooney almost put paid to Ed’s season – but not his footballing aspirations, rather his karting title hopes.
A mistimed tackle in a school football match three weeks ago hurt the teenager’s right foot, and there were fears that he’d broken his metatarsal - which would have greatly set back his push to win the British Super 1 kart title.
After two straight victories in Britain’s premier karting Championship, the 13-year old is very much the driver to beat in the Junior Rotax category. He said: “When I got kicked it hurt enough for me to go to hospital. The doctor was talking about the possibility of me having a broken metatarsal and I just thought ‘This’ll really mess up my season if I have done something like that”.
Having given himself time to recover, Ed and his team decided to compete in a club race last Sunday, to see how far down the road to recovery he’d gone.
Any concerns they had were soon allayed when he took a 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the heats, before winning the final by some three seconds over his nearest rivals.
“I started from 2nd on the grid, but within the first lap I’d passed (the pole-sitter) Shaun Pirie and managed to get away as he started a race-long fight with the third-placed driver.” He added: “I’m pleased because Jack is right behind me in the Super 1 Championship, so to leave with a win is a big confidence boost for me and even though my foot was sore, it didn’t slow me down.”
But before the Championship moves to Kent in June, Ed will driving a Group N rally car.
“My Uncle bought me a junior driving experience and I’m going to be driving a Mini Cooper, a BMW Alpina, a Ferrari and then the rally car. Despite wanting to be a professional sportscar racer, it’s the rally car that I’m most looking forward to trying. The Ferrari will be a lot of fun, as will the other cars but I really fancy having a go on the loose tarmac and chucking a rally car around.”

Brand is street’s a-Ed of the rest
Two wins out of two for Junior Rotaxer  
Ed remains unbeaten in the British Super 1 Championship after being declared the winner at a wintry Shenington in Oxfordshire (6 April).
After comfortably winning the opening round of the Championship at Clay Pigeon in Dorset on 16 March – Ed arrived early at the snowbound circuit on Sunday morning, and immediately joined fellow drivers, marshals and mechanics to help clear the track. He says: “About three to five inches of snow had fallen over night and completely covered the circuit. After my win at Clay there was no way I wasn’t going to race, so I grabbed a spade and did my bit.”
However, with the racing getting under way late in the morning, a curtailed programme was necessary. Only the heats were run, leaving the crucial finals to be axed.
Ed demonstrated that his Clay Pigeon win was no fluke by taking two heat wins and a 4th place. This gave him sufficient points to be declared the winner once all hope of running the Finals had been abandoned.
Despite having a 39 point lead in the Championship, Ed remains cool about his performance: “I’m quite relaxed and chilled about the whole thing really. I just did my job (on Sunday). There’s along way to go, so I’m not even thinking about the championship just yet.”
His team boss, Paul Carr of Paul Carr Racing agrees: “When you’re in Ed’s position you’ve just got to keep your head and keep at it. That’s the way to be British champion.”
Ed’s Super 1 title hunt resumes in June when he travels to Buckmore Park in Kent for the 3rd round.
Before then, he will be keeping himself sharp by competing in a couple of club races - the first of which will be at his ‘home’ track of Whilton Mill near Daventry in Northamptonshire on 27 April.

Ed off to a flyer at Clay Pigeon
Ed got his debut season in Junior Rotax Max off to a superb start when he won an incident-packed first round of the British Super 1 Championship at the Clay Pigeon raceway in Dorset (16 March).
The wet conditions and the circuit’s notorious Billy’s Blind corner produced racing that often more resembled a demolition derby than a top-flight kart race.
With drivers’ finishes in three qualifying heats determining their grid position for the final, surviving the carnage was essential. The 13-year old started his first race from 18th on the grid and found the experience somewhat ‘bumpy’ -“If anyone was going to spin off, or try to rejoin the circuit in that race, they all seemed to do it right in front of me”. This slowed his progress, but Ed was still able to finish in 10th place at the chequered flag.
The front of the grid was clearly the safest place to be - and Ed counted himself lucky to start on the 2nd row for his next race, where a sensible drive saw him finish 3rd.
It was 3rd place again in his final heat. Starting from 14th, the Paul Carr Racing driver got a good start and was up to 8th as the pack emerged out of the first two corners. By constantly moving up a place with each lap, Ed finished 3rd and sealed a second-row start for the final.
Conventional wisdom proves that Championships are won over the course of a season and not at the first race. But with a field of teenagers – all as twitchy as squirrels who have over done it on the Red Bull - patience was a rare commodity. 
Indeed, as the 30-strong pack streamed into the tricky right-hander that is Billy’s Blind on the rolling up lap, Ed was clipped and launched skyward. Surviving intact, he was able to slot back into his proper starting position and take the start. As Ed and two other drivers barreled into Billy’s for the first time after the start, they were three-abreast. “I was reminded afterwards of Lewis Hamilton’s move at Silverstone when he raced in GP2. That move sealed his reputation and must’ve inspired me because as we came out of the corner and ran towards the first chicane, the other guys dropped back and I emerged in the lead.”
Any detractors about Ed’s title chances before the race suddenly found themselves wondering whether the youngest driver in the series, was now the favourite to take overall honours.
Ed himself was coy: “It’s easy to get carried away but I’d rather just take it one race at a time. This is only the first race of the season and I’m sure things will only get closer. My job is just to keep making the most of the kit that I’m given and rewarding the team’s hard work and faith in me.”
However, as one seasoned motorsport journalist was moved to comment on Ed’s performance: “I now believe the hype – he was great!”

Ed wins Winter Series and says “Now for the Super 1!”
Ed sealed the Trent Valley Kart Club Winter Series yesterday (2 March) with a canny drive to 3rd place in the final.
Having won the previous round at the PFI circuit in Lincolnshire on 3 February, he returned to the circuit very much the man to beat.
Having survived the preliminary heats to finish 9th (after starting 22nd on the grid) and 2nd, Ed would put his Kosmic on 4th place on the grid for the Final. And if his nerves weren’t already jangling at the prospect that a good finish would seal the title, they were when his motor refused to fire. “An electrical cable had come loose, so when I went to start the engine – nothing! We frantically looked over the kart and the officials kindly delayed the start, so that I could work my way through the pack to my correct grid position once we’d found the problem.”
Reviewing the day’s action, he says: “The first heat was a bit bumper car-ish. I should’ve finished higher than 9th but I didn’t put in a particularly good drive. The second race was crazy though. We had three attempts at starts and I think I only did about two laps of actual racing because we were slowed down by the full-course yellows. Eventually a red flag brought an end to the race while I was in 2nd place.
For the Final, I was on the outside for the first corner and as we piled into it, I couldn’t get across and dropped down the order. I got back up to 4th place and sat behind the third-placed man. With two laps to go, the lead pair had started fighting and I was thinking, ‘I could win this’. I moved into 3rd just as they were beginning to look like they could knock each other off the circuit. At that point, I decided, ‘They could take each other out - or me’. With 3rd good enough for the Championship, I opted to play it safe.”
Having beaten some of his British Super 1 championship rivals to the TVKC Winter Series title, does Ed think he can do it again and win the Super 1 championship? “Well… This is my first year in the class and I’m very much the baby of the bunch – I’m racing older and more experienced drivers but when we started the year, my dad said if we end the year in the top ten up, that will be a good result. Then that became a top five and now, I think I’ll be really cheesed-off if I don’t finish in the top three. I think we’re in it to win it now.”
He added: “I know Paul Carr wouldn’t want me to get carried away but this first title says a lot about the team, the Kosmic chassis and his engines. The whole package is great. I’d also like to thank my mechanic, Dean and my dad Mark, who got the best out of me and the set-up”.   

Ed’s all shook up at the Shakedown
You’ve got to keep working at being Number One – that’s the valuable lesson Dagnall karter Ed Brand learnt last weekend (24 February) at the annual Rotax Shakedown.
Taking place at the notoriously tricky Clay Pigeon circuit in Dorset, the Super 1 season’s traditional curtain raiser has often been known to raise tempers too – but the 13-year old Junior Rotax racer was feeling confident of success after two wins in two weekends earlier in the month (in club races at PFI on 3 February and again at Whilton Mill in Northamptonshire on 27 January)
And it all started so well for the Cottesloe School pupil, winning his first heat. In the second, he took another top ten finish, claiming 8th place at the flag. However, it was in the third heat that things started to unravel, when he finished down in 24th place. Ed explains: “Talk about going from one extreme to another! I won the first heat by over 5 seconds and the team was telling me to slow down in order to save my tyres. The second heat was okay, but in the third I tried an over-optimistic move and knocked my nosecone off. I had to come into the pits to replace it and by the time I rejoined the race, I was two laps down.”
And that wasn’t the end of Ed’s dramas. Starting from 9th on the grid in the Final, Ed almost found himself out of the race at the first corner, the notorious Billy’s Blind. He tells us what happened: “Going into Billy’s I got clipped and was momentarily launched skyward. Luckily the kart came down with no damage, but I’d dropped down to about 18th position. I started to pick my way through the traffic and had got up to 6th when someone tried to lunge me at the first hairpin. We locked wheels and both ran wide and I again lost loads of places. I was pretty fired up after that and was up to 6h place when the race was stopped by an incident on the track. That was a real shame, as I think I could’ve got up to 5th at least, maybe even 4th.”
So, no Shakedown trophy for Ed this time - but team boss, Paul Carr, doesn’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing: “He won’t make the same mistakes again” he said sagely “If you’re patient and bide your time, then the big wins will come to you. And as this is Ed’s first year in the Junior Rotax class, he’s had a good look at what his opposition will be like for the rest of the year.”
There’s no rest for Ed – he’s back in action this weekend at PFi, where he’s hoping to clinch the Trent Valley Kart Club’s Winter Championship. And the last time he raced at the Lincolnshire circuit, he won.

Two races, two trophies for Ed
Ed’s pre-season preparations for the 2008 season were given a huge boost when he took a superb win at Whilton Mill in Northamptonshire on 27 January.
And the Dagnall youngster’s victory came just a week after taking a fine third place at PFi in Lincolnshire (20 January), earning him further praise from his team boss, Paul Carr.
Ed: “Paul said he was very happy with my performance and that it was my best with the team so far. And that I’d made no mistakes.”
13-year old Ed now races in the Junior Rotax category – arguably British karting’s most popular, and therefore toughest, class – using a kart powered by a 125cc, water-cooled motor which is capable of speeds of over 70mph.
In his three heats, Ed signaled his intent by taking 2nd, 5th and 6th places, which gave him 2nd spot on the grid for the final. At the start, Ed got the jump on poleman Tom Ingram and quickly opened up a lead of some two to three kart-lengths. Although chased hard by Ingram, Ed’s run to the chequered flag was largely uneventful.
That was until two laps from the finish, when he came to lap a backmarker. Ed takes up the story: “I’d come up behind a tail-ender but decided not to risk over-taking him at the first opportunity. I waited and followed him through a corner. This allowed Tom to close in on me but I made my move at the next bend. I got through cleanly but in order to give me the room, the other guy baulked Tom and allowed me to re-open the gap”.
It was an intelligent move that drew the admiration of Carr. “Paul asked me: ‘was that deliberate?’ and I just said: ‘Oh yeah!’” Ed beamed later.
At the previous weekend’s race, Ed had faced stern opposition from many older, more experienced and bigger drivers – including British Open Champion, Joseph Reilly – but his combination of “risky moves, and some safe ones” saw him upset the form book, and possibly a few egos.
Ed’s campaign of club races will continue throughout February prior to the British Super 1 championship’s first race on March 16th. He says of his chances: “This is possibly going to be my toughest year in karting yet. But I’ve got a great team behind me and if the results keep coming like they have been, I should be in with a shout.”