CASTLE Eaton's Richard Hughes continued his run of victories in the Senior Rotax class at Rissington on Sunday.

The Total Butler-supported driver has now won all four meetings and leads the 2005 Championship by over 150 points on his Arrow kart.

Saturday's practice was mainly wet and, with rain forecasted for Sunday, it was a valuable opportunity to set up the karts for the expected conditions.

With Hughes quickest in every session he did, he decided to save his tyres for Sunday by mid-afternoon.

As the others slogged round on a damp track, the reigning champion concentrated on helping the juniors and novices in his team.

On Sunday morning, there was no sign of rain and it was declared a dry meeting. In fact, the rain held off until early evening.

In the qualifying heats, each of the 30 drivers had to start from front, middle and back positions with their finishing scores deciding the starting order for the big race.

Hughes comfortably won his first heat. However, he got held up in the second one by somebody else's minor accident in the dog-leg corner, but managed to finish sixth.

Third place from starting at the back in the third was only enough for second place on the grid for the final, thereby breaking his run of pole positions at the circuit.

Reece Somerfield was on pole, with the advantage of the inside line as they cruised up to the rolling start, but Hughes was hanging back.

At just the right moment before the lights turned green, the Castle Eaton man applied the throttle and, although they crossed the line together, Hughes had the momentum to beat him into the first corner.

Somerfield held on grimly for the first part of the race and even got his nose in front once or twice. But once his tyres were up to temperature, Hughes slotted in a 42.41 seconds lap and it was all over.

Ten more lonely laps, all within a tenth of a second, saw another win for Hughes.