The shock of having his front axle snap in two mid-race wasn’t enough to derail Braintree karting ace Tom Joyner’s bid to claim the CIK-FIA KF Class European Championship title.

Racing at the PF International circuit in Grantham, the 23-year-old was competing in the second of the three rounds of this year’s European Championships and was looking to build on the second place he sealed at the opening event in Portugal in May.

Joyner knew his kart had good pace around the Lincolnshire track and ended the weekend by winning the final race to keep the pressure on overall championship leader Ben Hanley heading into the last round in Sweden next month.

However, having his axle crack during an earlier heat and spinning into a tyre wall at 35mph wasn’t the ideal route to taking the top step on the podium.

Joyner, who races for the Strakka Bhai Tech team and was the 2013 World Champion, said; “It’s pretty much unheard of for a mechanical to happen like that as it was a new component.

“It looked like it suffered metal fatigue and it was pretty hairy when it happened.

“There were only two or three laps to go and I suppose it was lucky that it happened on the hairpin bend when I was only going about 35mph – it would have been a bit different if it had been on either of the first two curves as you’re going 90 to 95mph there.

“I ended up in the tyre wall so I was OK, but it left us with a big repair job as we had a lot of work to do on the chassis.

“Fortunately it was the last race on the Saturday so we had a chance to do the work and everyone stayed late to finish it.

“Full credit to the team as they got it done.”

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