2002 Welsh Sports & Saloon Car Championship

Jointly adminsitered by WRDA & BARC Wales 

Supported by The Pembrey Performance Driving School

Round 7. Pembrey 23/6/2002

Seventh heaven for Terry!

Terry Brown - perfect score

Entry & Qualifing

There was something in the sky! Was it a bird, was it a plane? No, it was the sun! A nice sunny day at last! With Terry Brown on pole with a time of 57.579 secs; with Clive Hayes alongside in 2^nd place and Elir Morris in 3^rd place it was a double Radical 1-2-3 lock out on the gird! Alongside Elir and first non-Radical was Peter Williams his Global Light, with Nick Spence in 5th. In 6^th place Graham Hollis was the first saloon, with Rhodri Jenkins, 7^th and heading a tight midfield pack. Cindy Pearce was only ½ a second behind in 8^th in front of new comer Peter Coombs. Julian Howells’ Mini was an excellent 10th. In 11^th place was Peter Salter. Paul Townsend in his Escort RS Turbo was less than second behind in 12^2h, but down in 13^th Larry Phillips was hoping that his fuel feed problems were over after adding a swirl pot to his fuel system.

The race 12 Laps– Rolling start

The Pack gets ready to rock'n'roll!

Green for go! Another great start and no surprise to see Terry in the lead as the pack emerged from Hatchets, but this time Elir Morris got a move on Clive, and it looked like something special was on hand. Was it going to be as an irresistible force v an immovable object? Sadly no, because on lap 2, as Elir and Clive disputed the same piece of tarmac it was Elir two, Clive one. Dents in bodywork that is; Clive emerged into 2^nd place, Elir in 3^rd minus a front chin spoiler and with tyre smoke streaming from the right rear side. Nick Spence and Peter Williams resumed battle, with the Graham Hollis, Cindy Pearce and Peter Coombs, Rhodri Jenkins battles also joined together again. Larry Phillips was making moves as it appeared his fuel problems were solved but Paul Townsend only lasted a lap, but this time it was Larry who was left bearing the scars!

By the midway mark Terry was in total command with Clive and Elir, whose tyre had stopped smoking, both a long way back. After several tries Peter Williams got by Nick who suddenly slowed with gearbox problems, and then got going again in 5^th place, but both Peter and Nick were due for a promotion, as Clive slowed with a total electrical failure and entered the pits! (Post race inspection showed that all the wiring at the back of the car had fused into a solid lump! Post race inspection of Elirs car showed that the reason the tyre stopped smoking was that there was no rubber left on almost 2/3rds of the tyre with the bare canvass clearly in view!) This left Peter in an excellent 3rd place overall, which is not bad considering this is his first year in the series!

Peter Williams - 600 cc Global Light

The midfield action was hotting up again; Graham sideways cornering style was keeping Cindy at bay, but now Peter Coombs and Rhodri were catching them. Sadly it all ended for Cindy at about the same time as Clive made his exit, but this time in a cloud of dust at the entry to the Esses, the nose looking very second hand after the dust had cleared.

Cindy's car before - it wasn't so nice after!

Cindy wanted to draw a veil over the matter, but Peter Coombs was now left with a clear run at Grahams Escort! To use Murray Walkers catchphrase, "Catching is one thing". In Graham’s case, Peter made several tentative looks at an overtaking manoeuvre, but found that Graham does not need to drive off-line to make his car look exceptionally wide! Peter eventually decided to give it best and eased back to finish 6^th, with Rhodri 7^th, Larry 8^th, Julian 9^th and Pete Salter 10^th.

So Terry was left to stoke home to his 7^th win of the season, the longest winning streak for many a year. Afterwards Terry was happy. "This is a very reliable car, and that’s a relief after all the problems I had with the Skoda and LM last year".

It will not be until August 31st that the series comes back to Pembrey, and there is a lot of racing to be done before then with the next rounds at Mallory Park on June 30th, Mondello Park on July 21st and Mallory again on  August 18th!

Full results and times can be seen on www.mstworld.com