2012 Welsh Sports &
Saloon Car Championship
Entry & Practice –
Rounds 3 & 4 Pembrey August 5th
Race 1 - lap 1 - Neil Watts leads from pole!
(photo Steve Williams)
2012 will be remembered for a number of
things but one of the top topics, apart from the revival in the
WSSCC will be the weather. Since March the weather in 2012 has
been the rainiest since records began, and although the previous
rounds of the 2012 WSSCC have been dry if not sunny, the weather
in the week or so leading up to the 5th August was
especially rainy and cold at times, but practice was on a wet
but drying track. In the
weeks leading up to the event there was a suggestion that the
entry could be close to the circuit maximum of 32. Sadly that
didn’t materialise; amongst the major withdrawals, Alvin Powell
was out awaiting a new alternator, Glynne Jones was
unfortunately ill and Jeff Davies who has going to enter, but
had to withdraw after his father sadly died. However it was nice
to see Mark Nicholson, Keith Butcher and a fit again Andy
Williams back to make up the 25 car grid. Major newcomer was 16
year old Dexter Compton whose family had travelled from
Radcliffe in Manchester so he could make his race debut with us.
During practice as the track dried out,
Neil Watts (Westfield - 1st Class CS) was a surprise
fastest in practice ‘Don’t read anything into it’ with Keith
Butcher (Ginetta G501st Class D) 2nd. John Morris
(Vauxhall Silhouette) was 3rd with Geraint Rees
(Westfield) 4th. Martin Davies (Ford Sierra Sapphire)
was 4th after changing tyres halfway thru practice.
Martin Davies and son Jason had a race against time to build up
and fit a new engine after finding a cracked block in his usual
engine on the previous weekend at Mallory Park. After working a
series of marathon shifts, involving some major engineering
work, they finally finished at midnight on Friday! After a quick
blast at a local airfield on Saturday morning to check things
over, they were ready to go on to Pembrey. “We had to try as it
was too important to miss as there are only 3 race-days this
season” said Martin. Keith White was 6th in his
silhouette BMW,
A surprising 7th, and fastest in
Class CS, was Kareem Elsorafy with his new all-white Honda
Integra, which was just what the Doctor ordered. 8th
making it an all Integra 4th row, was the returning
Mark Nicholson, who was having his first race of the season.
Mark commented, that the car was ok, but he was rusty (or words
to that effect!)
Newcomer (Ist Class CT) Kevin Bird was 9th
in his BMW 130i, which was a new addition to the usual cars in
the WSSCC series. First round sensation Micheal Cond was 10th
with a new engine and a new larger oil cooler, was still 1st
Class M car.
11th was Rhodri Jenkins (Honda
Civic). Roger Dowden was in 12th place and 1st
AS, in the all fibre-glass Swansea Met-vet Davrian Mk6 .
13th was the
returning Andy Williams, ((Ford Sierra Sapphire) looking slim &
fit, Andy was one of the drivers caught out by the changing
conditions. Mike
Edgell’s Mini was
14th , Mike had a taste of the 2012 Olympics on the
way to the circuit with the M4 at a standstill as footy fans
tried to get into Cardiff for the Team GB v South Korea match.
(It ended up with penalties-say no more). Teenage newcomer Dexter Crompton
was an excellent
15th in his Peugeot 206GTi. 16th was Andy
Long in his Sylva Pheonix. Row 9 was looking like an all BMW row
with Giles Beck 17th in his 318Si with Colin Wells M3
18th, but sadly Colin didn’t make it out for the
race. On row 10 was Phil Bendall -18th (Ford Fiesta)
ist BT car and Chris Morris 19th (Suzuki Ignis) who
was 1st AT car. On Row 11 Huw Morgan (Proton) was 21st
with Chris Evans (Nova) 22nd.
Andrew Meyrick was 23rd
in is Chevette with Verity Banks (MG ZR) 24th and
Meillisa Luffarelli in the Moto-Min1 was 25th.
Race
1 – 15 mins + 1 lap- rolling start
Black rain clouds seemed to circling us at
Pembrey all day, with Black Clouds over towards Carmarthen all
morning, and with 45 minutes to go before the 1st
race, the heavens opened with a stiff rain shower, most drivers
switching to wet with a few notable exceptions.
After 2 laps behind the safety car (due to the change in
conditions since practice) it was Neil who held the lead exiting
Hatchets, with Keith Butcher following him.
But by the paddock turn, Martin, having already passed
Geraint Rees and John Morris, had passed Keith and was starting
to monster Neil, on the run down to Brooklands. Neil found his
tyres had not yet reached full temperature and Martin found
himself in a potential squeeze. “I hopped onto the grass, and
after a bumpy ride, I was able to get back on the track and get
into the lead.” Keith Butcher also managed to get past Neil but
Martin was already beginning to pull away, building a 22 second
lead over Keith by ½ distance.
Geraint Rees was 3rd, as Neil Watts dropped to
4th, but he had Keith White for company.
Keith had
changed his gearbox between practice & the race, and was
gambling on an odd combination with Wets on one side & Slicks on
the other! 6th was Andy Williams who had an early
charge up from a lowly grid position, to start to put pressure
on Keith, in a Westfield v Ford v BMW battle. 7th was
Michael Cond after having a dice with Mark Nicolson, who in 8thplace
was the last unlapped runner. In 9th to 13th
Rhodri Jenkins had a close dice with Kevin Bird as did Kareem &
Roger Dowden & Mike Edgell, who were scapping for the Class
lead. Chris
Morris rose from a lowly 20th to 14th
place. Whilst 15th & 16th saw Andrew
Meyrick and Dexter Crompton in close company. 17th
was Phil Bendall who had Andy Long battling with Huw Morgan &
Giles Beck. In the battle of the Ladies, Mellisa got a really
good start running just outside the top 20 for the first few
laps, before Huw Morgan passed her to join up with Andy & Giles.
However she was always ahead of Verity, although the lapping of
the leaders did a lot to break up the lower order dices, there
was still plenty of action. Sadly Chris Evans had already
pitted, but as the race passed half distance a rain shower swept
the track again. John Morris who was running 7th at
that time, decided to switch on his windscreen wipers, and at
that time all his electrics died leaving him stranded at the
side of the track on the exit of Dibeni, bringing out the red
flags! Afterwards John was able to re-start the car, but the
organisers called it a race as it was already after half
distance. Martin had a 22 second advantage over Keith Butcher at
the end, and took Class CS as well as the outright win.
On
his own! Martin Davies is back in the winning groove
(photo Steve Williams)
Afterwards Martin
confirmed, ‘Although my car is pretty nimble in the wet for a
big car, and the 4 wheel drive helps with the traction, you’ve
still got to keep it on the black stuff and you can’t let your
concentration drop. You’ve got to keep pushing. I could see I
was edging away from Keith and I was happy about that, but my
tyres were starting to go off, but then we had a sprinkling of
rain again which helped them. It was an exciting race, and with
2 overalls wins from 4 races I could get used it this!’ Keith
Butcher was also happy with 2nd overall and the Class
D win and confirmed 'The rain was really heavy over by Hatchets.
You could see it bouncing off the road!', whilst Geraint Rees rounded of the top 3 and confirmed he
was a ‘very happy boy’. The other Class winners were Michael
Cond with his Class M Sylva Riot. Mark Nicholson won Class BS on
his first race of the season so neither his Honda Integra or
himself were that rusty! Roger
Dowden (AS), Chris Morris (AT) and Phil Bendall (BT) were the
other class winners.
Keith White tries to keep John Morris and the rising
Andy Williams behind him (photo Steve Williams)
After the race news came through that there
had been a cloud burst covering the Carmarthen-Tenby & Narberth
area with heavy flooding. We were lucky to get away with what we
had!
Race 2 – 15 mins + 1
lap- rolling start
Times from www.tsl-timing.com
2012 Overall &
Class
Points
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