Brands Hatch 11th April 2010
With 22 entries for the first two rounds of the season this was 5 more than we had for the opening rounds last year. Unfortunately Ash had to withdraw at the last minute despite burning much midnight oil. Relative newcomers were Robin Walker, who has raced with us before in Dean’s rebuilt car, David Williams in his new Chris Wright built car that first came out at Snetterton last year, Gary Wetton who also did his first race at Snetterton in Colin’s old car and returnee Alastair Rushforth. Totally new to the Trophy are Simon Byrne who purchased Sean Peter’s ZR 190 just a week ago, Oliver Barnard, Paul Streather, Dan Molloy and Ross Makar all in their very nicely turned out brand new ZR 160’s. This years fav colour is blue ! Welcome to them all.
Testing
Testing on the Friday saw 11 Trophy cars present mixing it with some rather slower machinery on a beautiful sunny day.The only slight drama was Colin with a broken hub which was soon fixed. Amongst the quickest times were Colin, Graham, Paul L and Simon. Simon did very well considering he’s had no time to set the car up to his liking and I timed him on a 55.0 sec lap in the final test session on old rubber. We could have another contender to keep Chris honest. Newcomers Ross and Dan had their first taste of Brands and ran trouble free. Graham later discovered a broken gearbox casing that was bodged satisfactorily on the Saturday.
Qualifying
Trophy qualifying was at 11:05 am on the Sunday, another bright and dry day. All 21 cars took to the partially resurfaced track. Initial front runners were Ben, Andrew and Charles. Paul L, Andy, Graham, Doug and Colin soon featured in the top positions. The order at the half way stage was Paul L, Colin, Zak, Andrew with Chris and Graham moving up. At the finish of the session it read Paul L by 0.43 secs from Chris, with Colin, Graham and Simon completing the top 5. Andrew and Zak were pushed back down into sixth and seventh. Paul’s time of 54.042 was just .01secs off the fastest ever race lap by Whitmore in 2003 in a TF. In classes C & D, pole went to Paul S, so two Pauls on pole ! Alastair was soon back in the groove and claimed P2 just 0.135 secs behind with Oliver in third. Andrew suffered a broken track rod which meant a quick trip to Northfleet to rob the same off Ash’s car which he very kindly donated however, despite being off the same Cup car, a mod was required to get it to fit ?
Race 1
Unfortunately there wasn’t a lot of time between the end of qually at 11:22 and the first race at 12:20 especially for those last through scrutineering. (I’ve made a mental note of this for future reference). This meant that Andrew wasn’t able to take the grid; I bet in hindsight he doesn’t mind now! Paul L made a great start getting the rwd power down to his advantage however all hell broke out at Graham Hill Bend on the first lap when our Graham lost rear grip and was T boned by Simon who had nowhere to go, cars that got caught up in the aftermath were David W, Zak, Julia and Alastair. Following two safety car laps (being driven by ex Trophy driver Phil) the race was red flagged and the race was declared null and void with no race result being published.
Further delays to the afternoons racing ensued due to the Moss Europe AND the Mazda races BOTH being red flagged.
Two Mazda drivers were taken to hospital and this was followed by a spectator in serious trouble causing the air ambulance to be deployed further holding up any racing activity. Subsequent races were reduced in length to enable the remainder of the programme to continue.
Race 2 (the only race !)
Due to the above delays our race didn’t start until 16:52 and was shortened to 10 minutes duration, this therefore gave people time to fix their damaged cars. Graham’s car was totally beyond repair, and Simon’s, although possibly repairable, remains in doubt. David Williams’s car was worked on by the CMC team as was Zak’s and Julia’s. All three made it to the grid along with Alastair’s repaired car. 19 cars therefore took the start at 16:52. Once again, Paul L made a very good start which he held until the 9th lap. However, on the opening lap Andy went off at Graham Hill bend (but managed to rejoin) making us believe that we might be seeing a repeat of the previous incident. Ben took to the grass to avoid the braking cars and this had the effect of creating a gap between the 5th and 6th place runners. The leading group were Paul L, Chris, Colin, Andrew and Doug. These five held station until lap 9 when Chris squeezed past Paul at Paddock Hill bend. The next group consisted of Gary, Charles and Zak, Ben having fallen back to 13th when taking the avoiding action. Ben pressed on, gradually working his way back up lap by lap to P7 on lap 6 but couldn’t get past Zak who pipped him to the line by just 0.15 secs. Charles finished in 8th and Gary 9th. Fastest lap went to Chris on lap 5 with a 54.506s. Andy and Robin were early retirees, Robin with a loose crank shaft pulley bolt which threw off the pas belt. In the class C/D group, there was a race long duel between Paul S, Oliver and Alastair with the cars just inches apart, this made for really good spectator viewing. Julia finished 4th in class C with Ross and Dan next home. The two Davids rounded off the finishing places with David W bringing the ‘gaffa tape special’ in ahead of David K. Fastest lap went to class winner Paul S on lap 11 with a commendable 57.907s. Driver of the race was decided by the commentators and awarded to Chris. Graham got a special award.