Bailey James Racing, 3 Ellerbeck Close, Burnley (2026)

05/09/2026

So apparently this is what happens when your dad is a travel agent... 😂

All year, Dad spends his time sending people off to amazing places.

🏝️ Luxury resorts
🚢 Cruises
🍹 Cocktails by the pool
🍽️ Gourmet food
🛎️ Room service
🌍 Some seriously cool destinations

So you'd probably think we'd have some pretty amazing holidays too, right?

Wrong. 😂

My summer has been more like:

🚐 Caravan
🏎️ Kart track
🅿️ Car park
🍳 Cooking in the caravan
🌧️ British weather
👃 The lovely smell of two stroke

We've basically spent the summer touring the UK, following the karting calendar and finding increasingly creative places to park the caravan. 😂

While Dad is busy booking people into five star resorts...

We're over here treating the paddock like a holiday destination.

The caravan is our hotel.

The BBQ is our restaurant.

And apparently the smell of two stroke counts as a tropical breeze. 😂

No infinity pool.

No room service.

No cocktails by the pool.

Just karts, caravans, early mornings, late nights and a ridiculous amount of time spent in car parks.

And you know what?

I wouldn't swap it. ❤️🏁

Although Dad...

I'm still available for that luxury holiday you keep booking for everyone else as well. 😂🏝️

If your summer holidays were spent camping in car parks, stuck in traffic jams on motorways and sitting at a dusty trackside, you're part of the journey. And I'm grateful for every single one of you who follows along.

Save this if you get it.

23/08/2026

The trackside chef strikes again.

This Cajun lemon prawn flatbread has become my go-to between sessions. Quick to make, easy to eat, and it actually tastes incredible.

Ingredients — per person

▪ 1 spring onion
▪ 1 garlic clove
▪ ½ red chilli
▪ 4–5 button mushrooms
▪ ½ orange pepper
▪ Approx. 75g prawns — raw or cooked
▪ Cajun seasoning, to taste
▪ 30ml olive oil - We use garlic & chilli-infused
▪ 30ml lemon juice
▪ 1 flatbread — we use Tesco Finest Red Leicester, Cheddar & Caramelised Onion
▪ Greek yoghurt
▪ Fresh lemon & Coriander to finish

Method
1. Prep everything first. Finely chop the spring onion, garlic, mushrooms, chilli and orange pepper.
2. Season the prawns. Add Cajun seasoning to taste. We like ours spicy, so don't be shy!
3. Build the base. Heat a shallow saucepan or frying pan over a medium heat. Add the 30ml olive oil and 30ml lemon juice and let it warm through.
4. Add the vegetables. Add the peppers, chilli, garlic and spring onions. Cook for a few minutes, stirring regularly, until the vegetables begin to soften and the flavours start to come together.
5. Add the mushrooms and prawns. Stir in the seasoned prawns and cook until they're done. If using raw prawns, cook until pink and completely cooked through. If using cooked prawns, just heat them through.
6. Let the sauce reduce. Keep everything moving in the pan for another minute or two, allowing the lemon, oil, Cajun seasoning, garlic and chilli to reduce into a rich, spicy sauce that coats the prawns and vegetables.
7. Warm the flatbread according to the packet instructions or gently in a dry pan.
8. Build your flatbread. Add a generous spoonful of Greek yoghurt to the warm flatbread, then pile on the Cajun lemon prawns and vegetables.
9. Finish with fresh lemon, chopped coriander and get stuck in!

Top tip: 🌶️🍋 Don't hold back on the Cajun seasoning if you like a bit of heat. The combination of the spicy prawns, fresh lemon and creamy Greek yoghurt is what makes this work.

Save this for your next race weekend. 👍

18/08/2026

🏁 British Kart Championship Round 4 - Whilton Mill 🏁

𝐖𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐃𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐋!

After three rounds of getting closer and closer, Round 4 at Whilton Mill was the weekend we finally made it happen.

Whilton is a track I really like and we've raced here several times before, so we already had a good starting point when we arrived.

Friday was a really positive day. We made changes throughout the sessions, found more pace and kept improving every time we went out.

Saturday qualifying was a different story.

Qualifying at this level can become a bit of a game of attrition. Everyone waits in the pits until the last possible moment, then heads out trying to get the perfect flying lap and the all-important tow.

We decided not to play that game.

The plan was to go out earlier, get a banker lap and hopefully pick up a tow when the rest of the field came through.

Unfortunately, it didn't work.

We got caught up in the traffic as everyone rolled over and our flying lap was compromised. The result was a lap over a second slower than we'd managed in practice and P23 on the grid for Heat 1.

Then things got worse.

As I came out for the warm-up lap, the engine started spluttering. Halfway around the lap it cut out completely and I had no option but to pull off.

Heat over before it had even started, all down to a 50cm length of hose!

Somehow, post-race penalties and disqualifications meant I was classified P24, so it wasn't quite the disaster it could have been.

Heat 2 started from P24 and this time we had a serious advantage.

Because I hadn't completed a lap in Heat 1, my tyres were virtually untouched while everyone else had already put a heat cycle through theirs.

By lap 6 I was up to P18 and comfortably moving through the pack.

Then I tried a little too hard.

Going for P17, I outbraked myself and sent the kart into a drift that even Ken Block would've been proud of! 😂

Unfortunately, the train of karts we'd already passed came back through and all that hard work disappeared.

I kept pushing and crossed the line P23, which became P21 after penalties.

Going into Sunday, we'd learned something important. You're often so focused on your own race that you don't realise what is happening elsewhere on the grid.

Despite everything that had gone wrong for us, plenty of other drivers had experienced even more problems.

When the Saturday classifications came out, we were P36 overall.

Right on the cusp of the Final.

Sunday's Super Heat was going to be huge.

Starting P18, I made a good start and gained a couple of places, but then an incident ahead caused chaos. I ended up driving over the front of another kart that was facing the wrong way.

We managed to separate the karts, but I was now more than 20 seconds behind the field with a damaged nosecone dragging along the floor.

We considered pitting.

I decided to stay out.

The tyres were still good, the pace was there and there was nothing to lose.

It turned out to be the right decision.

A mixture of retirements, incidents and a technical flag for one of the drivers around me meant that, after everything had been sorted, I was classified P16.

Then came the wait.

Dad's maths suggested we'd made it.

But you never know until the official classifications are published.

And then it appeared.

P36.

WE HAD MADE THE FINAL.

Dead last on the grid, but we were in.

The Final plan was simple: stay out of trouble, don't get involved in the first-corner chaos, use the tyre advantage, be patient and make the moves when they were there.

And it worked.

Lap by lap I moved forward.

By lap 12 I was up to P27 and closing in on the group ahead.

Then, with two laps remaining, another driver decided my kart would make a better brake than their left foot.

I was sent sideways into the corner, producing another Ken Block-style drift.

The train of karts came past.

All that work was undone.

I crossed the line P35.

Was it the result we wanted? Absolutely not.

Was it the result the pace deserved? Probably not.

But that's motorsport.

We made the Final.

After three rounds of getting closer, we finally got there.

And now we know we can do it.

👍 Biggest Positive
My first British Championship Final.

🤔 Biggest Lesson
Keep fighting. This weekend looked finished more than once, but it wasn't.

🎯 Next Mission
Make the Final again — and finish further up the order.

Thanks to everyone who has supported me through the season so far. This one means a lot. 👊🏁

Stortec Engineering Ltd | Fort Vale Engineering LTD | Owkay Clothing | Coles Racing

06/08/2026

Race week is finally here! 🏁

This weekend we're back on track for Round 4 of the British Kart Championship at Whilton Mill.

It's been a few weeks since the last round, so I'm really looking forward to getting back behind the wheel. Whilton is a track I know well and one I've always enjoyed racing, so I'm excited to see what we can do.

We've been working hard behind the scenes, taking everything we've learnt so far this season and looking to keep moving forwards. The pace has been improving every round, so hopefully we can put another strong weekend together.

Looking forward to seeing everyone at the track. Let's get after it! 💪🔥

Stortec Engineering Ltd | Fort Vale Engineering LTD | Owkay Clothing | Coles Racing | The Strategy Coach | Designer Travel by Simon Collinge

06/08/2026

We've got the next round of the British Kart Championship in less than 48 hours, so naturally we're both sat in a hot tub whilst the first rain in weeks absolutely hammers down.

Timing? Impeccable.

We finally got the hot tub out, filled it up, settled in,and within ten minutes the sky opened. Proper biblical stuff. The kind of rain that makes you question every outdoor decision you've ever made.

But here's the mad part: we stayed in.

Because honestly, where else were we going to be? The garage? The sim? Watching TV?

Sometimes the best thing you can do before a big weekend is absolutely nothing. Just sit. Laugh at the absurdity of British weather. Let the rain do its thing whilst you stay warm.

Race weekends are chaos. Non-stop chaos mixed with, pressure, decisions and graft!

So before the madness of the British Kart Championship kicks off again, we carved out an hour to do something completely pointless.

And it was perfect.

Tag someone who'd sit in a hot tub in a storm with you before a big weekend.

Don't forget to Follow for more behind-the-scenes 'action', your support means the world! 👇

Stortec Engineering Ltd | Fort Vale Engineering LTD | Owkay Clothing | Coles Racing | Strategy Coach | Travel by Simon Collinge

05/08/2026

Race week is officially here, and you know what that means: time for some serious prep! 😉

We spent most of yesterday getting the caravan sparkling clean, ready for another weekend of chasing speed.

It's moments like these that remind you motorsport isn't all glamour and trophies. There's a whole lot of hard work, grit, and even a bit of caravan washing that goes into it. But every single bit is part of the journey.

Thanks for being part of it all!

Don't forget to Follow for more behind-the-scenes 'action', your support means the world! 👇

Stortec Engineering Ltd | Fort Vale Engineering LTD | Owkay Clothing | Coles Racing | The Strategy Coach | Designer Travel by Simon Collinge

29/07/2026

I sat in the van after this happened and genuinely wondered if I should keep karting.

Not going to lie, this moment hit different. The session was going well then a sudden downpour changed everything, I was in the barriers and I was hurting.

But here's what I learned sitting there:

✅ One bad session doesn't define your entire season
✅ The legends I look up to have all been exactly where I was
✅ Doubt is just part of pushing yourself to the next level
✅ Your community shows up hardest when you're lowest
✅ Tomorrow's a new day, a new chance to go again

When you're chasing a dream, every session feels like it has to be perfect. But growth doesn't happen in the comfort zone.

After we had repaired the kart I got back out there. Adjusted. Learned. Fought back.

If you're chasing something that scares you a little, that's how you know you're on the right path. Keep pushing. The breakthrough is closer than you think.

Follow along for more real moments from my journey. We're just getting started.

Bailey James Racing

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