A couple of weeks ago I wrote here about my son Ethan’s weekend at PF International — 40 overtakes in a single day against 65 of the best junior drivers in the country, and a race he was leading the charge through before being knocked out of it two laps from the end.
I said at the time I thought we’d look back on it as a turning point.
This weekend proved it.
A quick reminder for anyone reading this cold, because “karting” gives most people entirely the wrong picture.
Ethan is 14, from Aldridge, and races Junior Rotax — the toughest junior class in British motorsport. Not an indoor track, not a birthday party. Proper racing, on national circuits, against drivers who’ve been doing it for years.
This weekend was Round 8 of the Shenington Kart Championship, at Shenington near Banbury, on a packed grid of 55 Junior Rotax entries.
Saturday was practice day, and it wasn’t a good one.
Ethan made some mistakes on track early on. The pace was OK, but nowhere near the top ten we wanted. So the day became about work rather than lap times — setup changes on the kart with his mechanic Jensen Pugh, and session-by-session analysis with James Tester on the data, building a plan for Sunday.
Nobody films that part. It’s where race days are won.
There was one moment worth mentioning, though. With a lap to go in the final practice session, the GoPro mount snapped. Ethan caught the camera in mid-air before it flew off the kart, held onto it, and drove the last lap flat out with it in his hand — moving it around to change the angle as he went. The footage is extraordinary, and it’s on our social channels if you want to see what a national circuit looks like at full throttle from angles you’d never normally get.
That evening, over dinner, we did what we always do: went through the whole day, the good and the bad, and talked about focus, belief and mindset. He went to bed knowing exactly what Sunday looked like.
Morning practice — sixth quickest. The Saturday work had done its job.
Heat 1 — he started 17th and finished 7th. Ten places gained, and he didn’t lose a single position all race.
Heat 2 — he started 7th, was up to 4th within a few laps, and then did something he’d never done before: he took the lead. Ethan led a Junior Rotax race outright for a lap or two, at 14 years old, in his first season in the class. A small error at the final corner dropped him back into the leading group and he finished 4th.
Watching your kid lead a national race is a peculiar feeling. What struck me most wasn’t the position — it was that he looked completely at home there.
The A Final — those heat results put him 7th on the grid, his strongest qualifying position of the season. He ran as high as 4th, spent the race scrapping with the quickest drivers in the class as the order changed lap after lap, and took the chequered flag in 7th.
His best Junior Rotax result of 2026. No penalties all weekend. And not one race, all day, where he finished lower than he started.
For most of this season Ethan has been fighting his way out of the mid pack — which is where these races are actually decided, and where a lot of quick drivers get stuck for years. This was the weekend he got out of it.
Because none of it happens without local businesses.
Ethan Guest Racing has no wealthy backer. It’s a family from Walsall doing this the hard way, funded by companies and individuals around here who decided to be part of the story. I wrote last time about the work we do with them — the content we film with AARC and with Grand Prix Racewear, where Ethan is an ambassador, and the days we’ve spent at Haywards Transport, Murray & Willis, Ads Creative, Wagstaff Recruitment and Uggly & Co, shooting photography and video with their teams. Meeting the people behind those businesses remains one of the best parts of this whole thing.
There’s a very specific way to get involved right now, and it was built by a Walsall business.
The Wall of #41 is a page on Ethan’s website made up of 41 squares — his race number. Each one costs £150, one-off. The whole wall funds the end of his 2026 season.
A square gets you:
Twelve months of marketing for a one-off £150, and you’re part of a story people around here actually want to follow.
23 squares have gone. 18 are left. Those 18 are, quite literally, what gets Ethan to the end of the season.
The page itself was designed and built by Hannah Scott and the team at ADS Creative Solutions — a local business who are on the wall themselves. It looks superb.
www.ethanguestracing.co.uk/wall-of-41
The long-term aim hasn’t changed: to build a route to the top for a driver with real talent who doesn’t come from money. Motorsport makes that extraordinarily hard, which is exactly why local backing matters so much.
If you’d like to be part of it — a square on the wall, a conversation about sponsorship, marketing ideas, an introduction, or simply following along and sharing the odd post — we’d genuinely love to hear from you.
Full race reports and everything else: www.ethanguestracing.co.uk
All social channels: linktr.ee/ethanguestracing
Thanks for reading — and a proper thank you to every Walsall business already backing him. This weekend was yours as much as his.
Steve Guest, Ethan Guest Racing
