Tom’s second heat win came in the race after his first. This time he started on pole and managed to not only defend from the other drivers but managed to pull away from them dramatically. He then took the flag all by himself with second place not even on the finishing straight!

After a few heat wins in his karting career, the time finally came for Tom’s first Grand Prix win.

For the entire Grand Prix Tom made the most of every heat finishing as high as he could, this effort granted him P2 on the starting grid for the deciding 8-lap heat in the wet conditions. After a speedy reaction from the lights, Tom took first place into the opening corner and pulled away from the other drivers, then proceeded to take the flag with an astonishing 8.1 second lead!

2024 southwest karting final win streak:

During the final race of the 2024 season, Tom tallied up an unbeatable streak of 6 different heat wins in a row. this achievement was undoubtably a record of the most wins in a row set by a driver at southwest karting

2024 karting season results:

after a valiant stand, and a championship lead for the majority of the season, Tom finished the 2024 season with a very close second place finish. the penultimate race of the season saw him lose his lead due to a very controversial non specific points deduction. as a result of this, Tom finished the season just 8 points behind the winner.

Tom’s comments:

“its tough knowing that I tried my hardest and I lead the championship all this way only to lose it to a points deduction. if I did not have that deduction I would have won it by 5 points. so its hard. but I still came a strong second. and I have made plenty of memories and some amazing friends on this karting journey. so yeh its disappointing for sure, but there is plenty to celebrate for, and i’m still happy with second. i’m not gonna dwell on the loss, i’m happy with what I have achieved and i’m excited and looking forward to what the future brings”

- Tom holding his award for a P2 finish in the standings.

In mid 2024 Tom attended DriveTribe Live 2024. He then entered the fastest lap competition around his home track with Ben Collins (ex-TopGear Stig) setting a benchmark time of 24.7s.

Tom blitzed that time with a 23.953s. He then went up on stage to receive his trophy from Richard Hammond and Mike Fernie.

In May 2024, Tom signed a contract with the Young Racing Driver Academy. Since then he has been having three hour simulator sessions twice a month at one of Arden motorsport’s specialised GB4/GB3 simulators whilst being coached by Steve Hutchinson (ex-racing driver) and Nikolas Taylor (2022 GB4 drivers champion)

Tom has thrived under this coaching and is improving rapidly at a lightning pace, and hopefully, next year, he will get his dream opportunity to have a testing day in one of Arden’s GB4 cars.

GINETTA:

in 2024 Tom gained his first experience in race cars. he spent a day testing in a Ginetta G40 junior in September up at Blyton Park, and 1 month later in mid October he competed in the 2024 Ginetta junior scholarship.

Tom’s first ever test in a race car was a truly thrilling experience, it was a slow start and took him a bit of time to get used to what he was driving, but in the afternoon he found a rhythm and started to post some impressive lap times. Tom’s comments: “the testing day came with a massive amount of nerves, i’d never driven a race car before this and was worried about my performance. it was a shaky start and I wasn't very confident with the car for a little while. but after a little break, I definitely started to really build myself up and find the confidence in me. i’m definitely impressed and proud of what I achieved in the second part of the day” thank you very much to Elite motorsport for helping us out with some pre scholarship testing.

2024 Ginetta Junior scholarship:

Tom;s comments: “it was an amazing day up at Blyton Park again for the scholarship. i was very disappointed not to make it to the final, but I do feel like I did not completely own the opportunity I had. but that’s motorsport, its a ‘cut throat’ world where if you are not performing you are out. I feel like I let myself down a bit with the media side, there were things that I should have said that I forgot. and I feel like I let myself down a lot with the fitness side, i was definitely the weakest person in the room, everyone was so much stronger than I anticipated. but however, the driving side I feel could not have gone better. even though the conditions were very sketchy, I feel I extracted everything I could from the car in the given conditions and hope that I at least scored highly in that part of the assessment. overall still a fantastic day with some more experience under my belt, so I prefer to look back on it as testing rather than a competition”