Sunbury’s Jordan Ford has taken the Australia Superkart 250cc series by storm.
Having previously raced sprint cars, Ford was given the opportunity to race in the Superkart series this year and hasn’t looked back.
He won the state 250cc national-class title and followed it up by winning the 250 national- class Australian championship, held over two rounds in July and September.
“It’s been awesome,” Ford said. “Slipstream and Williams Racing, who are based in Sunbury, were able to get all the equipment ready for me.
“I had confidence in myself even though Superkarts was new to me.
“The results came as a bit of a surprise. We worked hard on reliability and making sure we had the kart working well.”
The move to Superkarts had Ford driving on the same tracks as V8 Supercars and travelling at speeds close to those of the V8s.
“It’s an awesome opportunity to get on to those tracks and race,” Ford said.
“It was a new opportunity offered to me and could help me progress into racing cars if I go down that path.”
The 22-year-old became the first person to win all eight races of the 250cc national-class Australian championship.
He put the feat down to his experience in sprint karts and the work of his team.
“It was a pretty cool feat,” he said. “A lot of failures happen in karting so you need to have a good team behind you; a lot of credit [goes] to them.”
His teammate, Dale Williams, finished second in the series,
Ford said it was rewarding to win the series with a Sunbury-based team supporting him.
“Yes, it’s pretty good. We’ve had a strong relationship over the years.
“It’s good to help them achieve their goal of winning the championship; it feels like the whole team won it.”
Ford, who teaches children to drive karts, has set competing overseas as his next goal.
“The plan next year is to race in the United Kingdom,” he said.
“I want to prove to the world that an Australian can match the best.
“Karting is a massive industry on a big scale. I’m only 22 so there’s heaps I can achieve.”
