Round 13 – Pembrey – 16/10/04- Entry & Practice

With 23 cars to practice (Nigel Bowen’s Porsche would not run so he went to get his Primera) and with so much racing action report it would be some task to list all the entries, and their times.(which should be available on MST) Especially as practice turned out to be a mess. Starting with a wet track, the session was suspended after Shane Marshals’ Mallock caught fire and the greasy track was hosed down causing an inordinate delay in the session. By the time the session re-started the track was drying, offering the drivers a choice; go for a time and to hell with the wets, or save it for later. Among those going for it was Terry Brown who took pole from Chas Ryles by over 3.3 seconds. Peter Williams was 3^rd with Huw Williams 4^th. In 5^th place Alvin Powell returned with the World Cup Mondeo, ahead of Richard Rhozon and Martin Davies giving his Cossie a run out.

With the championship hanging on a handful of points the next few rows were vital for the title contenders. In 8^th place was Rhys Lloyd but only a few 10ths ahead of Andy Williams 10th was Don Kettleborough brought the full MG ZR championship set-up along for himself and fellow XR2 pilot David Coulthard (no not that one, and he’s heard all the jokes before) In between them points leader Rhodri Jenkins in 11^th did at least have his closest class rival in sight, but with Ken Rattenbury in 13^th and Shane Marshall 14^th fastest, in 15^th place Christian Evans has a lot of cars between himself and Andy Williams, making his task seem that little bit harder. However there are no points for qualifying and there was a long way to go yet. Matthew Perkins got a nice lap in to take 16^th, just ahead of newcomer Ian Collins who gave his Proton Coupe its series debut. (There is always room for something new in the Welsh Championship). 18^th &19th were Rover 216ers of Anthony Allitt and Lee David. Steve Pearcy (Honda Accord) was 20^th with Chris Davies the last of the 216ers in 21^st.

Paul Trowbridge (Ginetta G20) was the final returnee, just ahead of Adrian Chapman who was 23^rd after a marathon session that saw the normal 15 minute session take almost a hour to run. Surely the longest practice session ever!

Practice times on MST

The Race – 25 minutes + 1 lap – Rolling Start

Terry wins – Rhodri has a nightmare- Christian only 3 points behind!

There was plenty to cleaning, polishing and more importantly filling going on in the paddock as Shane Marshall and his mechanic worked long and hard, and I do mean long and hard to get his car fit to race. (Ironically they were able to get the U2 running again after the race had ended, but at least it meant they might be able to make it for Sunday). With the longest race in Welsh Championship history about to happen, fuel was on most peoples mind, some doing their sums, some trusting to luck and some others just filling their cars to the brim! Just to add another factor to hike up the tension, nasty black cloud appeared over the hills behind Hatchets and gave a lovely rain shower but after giving everybody a nervous 5 minutes it cleared away during the truck race leaving the track wet but drying. (Rain plus trucks would make the track very slippery, and there were spins galore throughout the race)

Car 44 - where are you? No need to ask as Terry hits the front!

However as the pack came round for the rolling start it was Terry who emerged from Hatchets with a heathly lead, which he extended and then protected throughout the race for another copybook Terry Brown performance. Behind him Chas Ryles held second place but not for long as he then had a very interesting race with a few grassy moments and spin, and great recovery drives before switching to economy run mode to bring the car home in 7^th place The man taking up the cudgels from Chas was Peter Williams who kept Terry in sight, profiting from the traffic to set up a final charge to the line! As the race entered the final phases Peter set his fastest lap to pull to within less than a second behind Terry. There was no cruising to the flag here and Terry responded to set the races fastest lap on the 25^th and penultimate lap, but Peter also uped his pace and at the end there was only 0.716 of a second separating them!

Saloon Car Action - just finding a space to race can be hard at times!

Behind them Huw Williams and Richard Rhozon staged brilliant dice for 3^rd and 4^th places, swapping & re-swapping places with Huw eventually emerging on top by less than a second at the end. The first 4 being the only runners to complete the full distance in 5^th and first saloon home was Martin Davies. Martin kept his nose clean throughout the race, apart from friendly tap by Ken Rattenbury, had a little with Chas Ryles and just to keep himself awake put in his fastest lap just as the race was ending. He was well clear however of Alvin Powell who had an interesting afternoon being one the first to spin but then carving his way 6^th place. Along the way he also ran into Ken Rattenbury, or almost did, as Ken did a 180 spin on the exit to Hatchets to present Alvin with sitting target! Fortunately Alvin was able to jam the anchors on and managed to avoid Ken, who admitted his knees were knocking (well that wasn’t what he said, but you get the idea). All in all the official records show Ken spun 5 times which must be some sort of a record, however he wasn’t the only spinner, and at one stage there were 4 cars all spinning at the same time on the same piece of track at the entry to Dibnei! It looked like a car park and Matthew Perkins has his work cut out to slalom through all the cars. Although there seemed to be a record number of spinner throughout the race all them were able to gather it up and continue.

Sadly however for Rhodris championship hopes, he was a spinner early on, but he didn’t get away unscathed and eventually had to pit to set things right, emerging later on to try a get a point for fastest lap. Sadly he didnt even manage that and ended up as a non classified runner with a rare N.C.F against his name. (not classified as a finisher). Rhys Lloyd won Class G and set the fastest lap to take all the points and even worse news for Rhodri was that the only other non finisher was Andy Williams, who retired when something broke on his front suspension, leaving the class H win and maximum points to his title rival Christian Evans! However it was no plain sailing for Christian, who was certainly in the thick of it early on but then began to drop back and slow ominously, almost crawling around to take the chequered flag and to close to within 3 points of title.

Further report to follow

Results on MST